


The Voice on the Other Side

by GothamOracle



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Radio, Rey on Jakku, long distance communication
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-09
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:48:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23076532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GothamOracle/pseuds/GothamOracle
Summary: When Rey of Jakku fixes a broken radio she finds in an old ship, she has no idea that this small piece of equipment will gain her a friend all the way across the galaxy on Yavin 4. This is the story of a radio and the voice that she found on the other side.
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Rey
Comments: 44
Kudos: 77





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my second fic of the last several weeks. I have six plot bunnies now and was supposed to be updating Sad and it's Sweet, but this one refused to be ignored. Not sure exactly how long it will be, but I have stuff planned out and we will see! 
> 
> As a note, I am playing with ages a bit. After the prologue, Rey will start at age 12 and Poe will be 4 years older than her due to fic reasons. :)
> 
> Thanks again to the Damerey discord and to Damerey_knows for being a fantastic betareader and editor!!
> 
> Here we go!

Rey is 11 the day things change. She isn’t aware of it at the time and won’t be for more than a year. But the day she brings the haul back from the mostly-picked-clean Star Cruiser to the south of Niima Outpost is the day things change.

At 11, Rey is small for her age. Like many on Jakku, she works as a scavenger. Her young age doesn’t shield her from the realities of the planet and its inhabitants. Most people here, including Rey, are hungry. She learns early on that Jakku malnutrition is made worse when you are competing with others who can lift and haul more than you can. To survive, Rey ‘partners up’ with adults who can't fit into the smaller spaces. Some of these partnerships are fruitful, others are closer to slavery, but if you don’t work, you don’t eat. She is paid for these jobs, but rarely is it more than a small portion. This may be enough to stave off starvation, but it is never enough to stave off hunger.

It’s Taungsday when she makes her way to the old southern Star Cruiser. A request from the junk boss Unkar Plutt has brought her here. It’s the first time in several months she’s tried to scavenge anything by herself. Normally she wouldn’t bother with something like this. The cruiser is old and has been mostly picked clean, but word around the Outpost is that there are still good parts inside, if anyone can fit into the small, out of the way spaces. Small, out of the way spaces happen to be Rey’s specialty. She has recently realized that this skill set is something that no one else around Niima Outpost can do. She isn’t sure what she is going to do with this information yet, but this request, this she knows she can handle it.

By the end of the day, Rey has a good amount of usable parts lying on the speeder she was lent by Plutt as part of his agreement with her. (It makes things easier and she can drag a lot more weight if the machine is doing most of the lifting instead of her arms.) Climbing out of the remains of the ship, she sits down and starts going through the last batch she’s gathered for the day, slowly picking out the usable parts from the junk.

At first, the innocuous part is thrown into a junk pile. It doesn’t look impressive, is beat up and when she pushes the buttons on it, nothing happens. If it won’t have any value to Plutt, then Rey has no reason to keep it. However, as she finishes the sorting, something tells her to take another look. And she does.

Rey picks up the abandoned piece of equipment and turns it around, opening the back compartment. The wiring inside is pulled out and the components are somewhat fried, but other than that, it’s in pretty good shape. It will need a new powercell, wire reattaching, and some new processors, possibly a new sending beacon, but those parts are common in the Graveyard…

Rey is 11 on Taungsday when she finds the broken radio and decides to fix it.

Rey has no idea that taking a second look at that junk pile changed everything for her, but it has.


	2. Repairs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One year later, Rey acquires the last part she needs and tries using the radio.

Rey feels the weariness in her bones as she pilots the speeder through the Jakku desert. The vibrations of the machine are just another reminder of why she doesn’t usually take these long jobs. At the age of 12, she knows she isn’t supposed to be feeling exhaustion like this, but this is Jakku and those who live here are no strangers to such things.   
  
Rey pulls her goggles off, her eyes falling on the AT-AT that doubles as her shelter. Stopping the speeder next to the structure, Rey gently climbs off the borrowed machine, careful not to hit any of the salvage strapped to it on her way down.   
  
The machine itself is a game changer and is why she was able to break out on her own (or mostly on her own) eleven standard months ago. Three somehow-intact fuel rods from an old rusted Rebellion X-Wing gave her access to the speeder for as long as she needed. The deal unfortunately tied her to Unkar Plutt the junk boss of Niima Outpost more than she’d like, but the speeder is his and right now she needs it. She knows this arrangement won’t stand forever. Eventually, she’ll need to find, or more likely build, her own. But Rey already has a plan. It will take time, but time is the only thing other than scrap metal everyone on Jakku seems to have in abundance.   
  
Dragging herself into the AT-AT, Rey carefully lowers herself onto her sleeping roll, wincing as she makes contact with the solid sand and ground below. She hates this part. She always reminds herself that she should be more careful, but it usually isn’t this bad. Her side throbs as she breathes and when she removes her tunic she finds that the skin around her left side is a sickly purple color. Grabbing some bandages from a tin, she starts wrapping.   
  
It isn’t the first time that Rey’s had this kind of injury and it likely won’t be the last. She’s spent the last three days climbing through a Class-II Imperial Star Destroyer, just one of numerous wrecks left after the war.   
  
Wincing again, Rey finishes the binding on her ribs and slowly lies back on the bedroll. She tries to focus on her breathing. Moments like this she curses a lot of things. She curses that her parents are taking so long to come back for her. She curses that she lost her grip and fell fifteen feet into a rusted console. She curses that it’s so hot out because it makes breathing that much harder. She curses that she is so alone out here with no one to help take care of her. But she doesn’t curse the job itself. She’d gotten paid three whole portions for this job, which would normally have taken her three jobs to earn. It will be enough to last her a week and a half if she rations it well.   
  
But the portions aren’t the reason she took this job. Lying on her back, trying not to move her upper body too much, Rey reaches for her discarded tunic and pulls it to her. She takes a moment to dig through the fabric, finally pulling out what she’s looking for. Holding it up above her head, Rey examines it, thinking how small the part is, but its size doesn’t make it any less important.   
  
It’s taken her a year, but this amplifier is the last piece she needs for the radio. Honestly, Rey didn’t think it would take this long to get everything together, but every amplifier she had found up until this point was either broken, ancient, or otherwise unusable. At one point, the unusable ones had been in a nice-sized pile in the corner of the AT-AT, which she had eventually turned in as meltable scrap.   
  
Rey isn’t sure why she is so focused on this project. Over the last year the radio has been in various stages of reconstruction. She’s taken it apart at least a dozen times. It was something to do when she was bored as she is still gathering parts to start constructing her speeder. She now has a working understanding of how this machine works, but other than that… Something keeps her coming back to it, something that keeps telling her that she should.   
  
At first, she thought she’d turn it in to Unkar for extra portions, but she isn’t even sure that Unkar will trade anything. He didn’t seem interested when she dropped it into conversation a few weeks ago. Not that Unkar is ever interested in speaking with her. It’s an unwritten rule that you don’t want Unkar’s attention. But Rey knows she somehow has it anyway. She isn’t supposed to be aware of it, but she knows that Unkar has been trying to “help her” strike out on her own. He’s been dropping her name in the ears of people who might need her services. But Unkar doesn’t do anything that won’t in the long run benefit him. Rey knows to be wary. And she is.   
  
“It might be worth something if I broke it into parts,” she muses, glancing at her only friend, the Alliance pilot doll she’d made two years earlier.   
  
The doll doesn’t answer, which is a good sign. The last time it did was during a particularly bad hunger, after which she was sick with fever. Old Maggs at the Outpost had called it hallucinating. Rey doesn’t want to repeat that ever again, even if Captain Ræh had been nice.   
  
“If this is the last part, I should at least try it,” she decides. “If nothing else, maybe other people have these things and will need them fixed.”   
  
Pushing herself into a seated position is something Rey instantly regrets as her ribs feel like they are on fire. She sits there, clenching her fists for a moment before it subsides. Luckily the radio isn’t that far away and she doesn’t have to move any further to reach it.   
  
Managing to open the back compartment, Rey removes a few of the components and slips the amplifier into place before reassembling the rest. She is now very familiar with the inner workings of the device and knows that it should work now. Rey’s hand moves to the switch on the top, embossed with a straight line and half circle on either side. She takes a shallow breath and flips it.   
  
She isn’t sure what she’s hearing at first, but there is sound. It doesn’t sound like anything human, alien or creature. It takes her a moment to realize that it’s static, but she doesn’t care about that. It works! If she weren’t hurting from the middle she would be on her feet jumping in excitement over the success. But right now she can’t.   
  
She turns the dial on the top, trying to get the static to stop and eventually it does, leaving a low hum in its stead. She figures that that is preferable because at least then someone can hear what you’re trying to say. The question now is what to do next.   
  
Rey again glances at the doll. Captain Ræh wouldn’t be scared of a radio. She would be in the cockpit of an X-Wing using a radio like this to communicate with someone on a base somewhere and helping Rebel pilots escape. If the doll can do it, then Rey decides that she can too.   
  
Without any more hesitation, she picks up the comm, presses the button and in a clear voice asks, “Is anyone there?” and then she waits.   
  
And waits.   
  
And waits.   
  
Rey is very familiar with waiting, but somehow she’d hoped for… something? She isn’t sure exactly what she was expecting, but this silence certainly isn’t it. Just like everything else in her life, this radio seems to want her to know that she is alone.   
  
She is quiet for a moment before she purses her lips together. She  _ is _ alone. So she hasn’t actually lost anything. This is fine.   
  
Gently lying back down on the bedroll, Rey winces before closing her eyes in pain. A wave of tiredness rolls over her as the adrenaline wears off and she starts succumbing to the sleep she will need to heal.   
  
Clearly this is an answer to what she should do with the device. She’ll give it to Unkar and let him deal with it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A million thank yous to Damerey_knows, who continues to be a fantastic betareader, editor and idea bouncer! Cannot wait to collaborate more!


	3. First Contact

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After three weeks of nothing, a voice cuts through the static of the radio.

Three weeks later, Rey is tired and frustrated. She is still recovering from her injuries, her left side has migrated from a royal purple to a wince-inducing green which Old Maggs says is an improvement. Rey doesn’t know how this can _be_ an improvement. She’s told by the end of this that her skin and bones will be back to normal, but in the meantime, Rey can’t do _anything_ .   
  
She hasn’t been able to do a full scavenging run since the accident. She tried and had to beg off the job before it started because it hurt too much.   
  
To make sure she doesn’t starve, she has been trading some of the parts she’s collected to build her speeder. They’re just the parts that she knows she can get somewhere else in the Graveyard, but it doesn’t frustrate her any less. Even worse, every time she gets onto the borrowed speeder she knows she’s making her injury worse, she can feel it with every vibration of the craft, jostling her around. She’d had to wait more than an hour to get back last time because her body needed to rest. And if the injury itself wasn’t enough, she’s felt tired and has been sleeping too deeply the last three weeks. Deep sleep isn’t safe. You never know when you might get raided. Rey had learned that the hard way...   
  
She shouldn’t have gotten injured in the first place, she should have been more careful. Mistakes like these are the reason that many don’t come back from the Graveyard. She knows of four others that are presumed to have died in one of those wrecks this year. She is determined that she won’t be next on that list.   
  
The parts she’s traded at Niima Outpost are enough for her to stay fed while she’s recuperating, but only because she is practicing her rationing. It doesn’t help that she’s been craving meat for some reason, but there’s nothing she can do about that.  
  
Curled up under her thin blanket, Rey cuddles with the pilot doll. It’s late, the sun long-since set beyond the dunes, and she’s fighting against sleep. It truly is the last thing she wants right now. She is tired of feeling useless, tired of not being able to move the way she wants to, and most of all, tired of being tired. But her body has a mind of its own these days, and doesn’t seem to care what she wants.   
  
In the background is the familiar low hum she’s become acquainted with over the last several weeks. In spite of her decision to trade it, the radio has remained in her shelter due in large part to its cumbersome nature and her inability to carry it with her injury.   
  
Its ultimate fate aside, the radio’s quiet hum has been a comfort against the dark and cold of the desert night. It gives her mind something to focus on other than the sounds of the Steelpeckers looking for metal, the Ripper-Raptors looking for flesh and terrifying silence of the Nightwatcher Worm. But there are no other sounds from the radio, just the calming hum that somehow keeps the nightmares - memories - of being left behind with Utkar at bay.   
  
She has almost succumbed to sleep when something changes. The hum becomes static, loud static and it sounds like there’s something else in it. It’s enough to jar Rey completely awake as she turns her head towards the radio, confused just as it seems to come alive.   
  
“Lura? Lura, can you hear me?”   
  
There’s a voice. For the first time in three weeks of having the radio operational there’s a voice and Rey isn’t sure if she’s more surprised or excited at the prospect of something happening. But she’s frozen staring at the box, almost like she’s forgotten that she can move at all, limited as it may be.   
  
“I think this is right…” Whoever is on the other end, it sounds like he is talking to himself. The voice is clearly male. “It should be working. Malvin?”   
  
Are Lura and Malvin two names for one person or are they separate people? Rey doesn’t know, but she does remember that she is not a statue and reaches for the comm. Pushing the button she manages a hesitant “H-hello?”  
  
And then she waits.   
  
And waits.   
  
Five minutes pass before there’s any kind of reply. It’s the same voice, he sounds excited. “Lura! Great, it’s working! Thought I was talking to myself.”   
  
And maybe he is? Because she isn’t this Lura and Rey doesn’t _know_ any Lura. And while the boy seems pretty sure that’s who he is talking to, he’s wrong. Part of Rey is telling her to turn the radio off. She doesn’t know who this person is and suddenly the idea of even _having_ the radio seems like a bad one…   
  
“I’m not Lura,” she says, again hesitantly into the comm.   
  
It is - again - a five minute wait before she gets anything back, something Rey takes a note of. It’s lag, which could mean anything really. It is an old radio and she’d used the first parts she could find to get it to work.   
  
“Oh. I didn’t think anyone else in the area had a radio.” The boy sounds surprised, as if somehow this was not supposed to happen. Which, it probably wasn’t. If he’s somewhere else on Jakku this could be an important communication she isn’t supposed to be hearing.   
  
“I didn’t either,” she admits. “It’s not easy to find the parts for it around here.”   
  
This time Rey starts using the lag time to think of ways that she could possibly fix the problem. She can’t do anything without parts, and likely won’t be able to collect any until she’s fully healed, but- Her thoughts are cut off when she realizes that she was trading the radio in. Lag time isn’t going to matter if it’s been sold to be put in a ship. Ships have a secondary sending method to deal with exactly this problem. So it isn’t something she needs to fix. She can just leave it alo-   
  
“Signals must have gotten crossed,” the boy replies, “I was worried that the terrain might cause a problem. Guess I was right. Malvin owes me five credits.”   
  
Credits? Rey’s head tilts slightly in curiosity. Rey knows what they are, mostly from people speaking about them, but no one at Niima Outpost uses them. Portions are the only currency that anyone cares about out here.   
  
“Not sure the sand is that much of a problem,” she replies, thinking. “Though the metal could be… I’m not sure how it works, but someone at the Outpost might.” Maybe Maggs, who seems to know a lot about everything and then a lot about nothing or Belna’e who tends to taste everything before he trades it in.   
  
“Sand?” He sounds puzzled by the idea. “What do you mea-”   
  
Rey’s eyes move back to the radio as the words cut out and the static cuts back in, slowly fading back to the hum that she’s become so familiar with at night. He was asking her a question but didn’t get to finish it. She hits the radio a bit - maybe a bit of percussive maintenance would work- but remembering that this isn’t a speeder and she doesn’t want to break it, she stops.   
  
The voice is gone and for a moment Rey feels disappointed that it’s over.   
  
Putting down the comm, she carefully turns around, only getting a twinge in her ribs this time, and stares at what counts as a ceiling in the AT-AT.   
  
She wants to know what he was going to ask and why he was so puzzled by the idea of sand. Sand is everywhere on Jakku, it’s part of everyone’s every day. Whether they want it to be or not. And credits. What did he mean, credits? No one on Jakku uses credits. It’s all about portions. If anyone had credits they could buy all the portions they wanted.   
  
There is a lot strange about that conversation. But it _was_ a conversation. And somewhere on this planet there is someone else who has a radio, or had a radio. And Rey falls asleep secure in the knowledge that the machine she put back together works.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First contact, ladies and gentlemen. And I wonder who that could be... :)


	4. Food and Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On Jakku, no one does anything for nothing. Rey isn't used to kindness from strangers, she isn't used to kindness at all. She certainly isn't used to people who care. Over the course of a week, both of these change and Rey gets a name to put to the voice on the radio.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter turned out much longer than I was expecting at 19 pages.
> 
> Many thanks to my fantastic beta-readers! This chapter was a long one and I am very happy to have the editors. Thank you to the Damerey Discord server. And edenofalltrades for idea bouncing.
> 
> Would love to hear what you guys think about the chapter! See you next one.

On Zhelladay, Unkar Plutt closes his business and the whole of Niima Outpost grinds to a halt. It is one of two days of the standard calendar that Plutt does this. The first is the Thamel Equinox and the second, which falls on Zhelladay this year, is the first day of the Crulora Festival.  
  
Rey has always been perplexed by these closures. It isn’t that she’s unfamiliar with holidays; she knows what they are, but has never celebrated them. She doesn’t even know what her own birthday is. The closest she gets is solemnly marking the anniversary of her arrival of Jakku every 368 marks on the wall, always making the same wish.  
  
While everyone is entitled to celebrate what they want, Rey finds it ironic that Niima Outpost is closed twice a year for Crul holidays celebrating water, on a planet where there is none. Most of the Outpost take the Water Holidays (as they are generally referred to) as days to rest, but Rey has had enough rest for a while.  
  
Although she can’t do a full scavenging run yet, Rey begins the week on Primeday by returning to work. Her bruises are now an ironically sand-like yellow-brown and they don’t hurt anymore when she moves. Poking her side still hurts however, she finds this out the hard way when Unkar does so with his fat finger, something Rey neither appreciates nor consents to. Her flinch seems to tell him everything he needs to know and he assigns her the task of inventorying the parts that have arrived in the last week. This lasts for two days before Plutt pulls her from item checking for another assignment.  
  
On Taungsday, Rey meets Samsa Vashe. The Chalactan is a long way from home and, like many, has found her way to Jakku not because she wants to be here, but because she has to be. The captain and her ship are forced to make an emergency landing not far from the Outpost after the hyperdrive fails. Rey has lots of experience taking things apart and putting them back together; it’s one of the ways she makes sure that the parts she gives to Unkar are actually worth something. Unkar gives her to Captain Vashe, much to the woman’s shock when he words it exactly so, to install the parts that were purchased.  
  
The captain is a woman with wrinkles and white braids that speak to her life experience. Her ship, the Kitwallow, is an old Kuat Drive Yards-made Corona-class transport vessel that has seen better days. Rey has seen a few of them in the Graveyard, she’s scavenged them too. If the twelve-year-old has to guess, she thinks this one might have been from the last war, like so many other things on the planet.  
  
Captain Vashe is very nice but hates being called “Captain.” She says it reminds her too much of her days with the military and she requests that Rey call her Samsa instead. Usually when Rey gets this kind of job, it’s all about the work. The pilots just want the repairs done so they can get off of this rock as fast as possible, not that she can blame them. But actually having someone to talk to while she does her job is refreshing. Samsa asks Rey questions about her life and some of them she isn’t sure how to answer. Samsa becomes horrified – again – when she finds out that Rey is twelve years old, though why she’s horrified Rey isn’t sure. The questions then stop for a while and are replaced with shop talk.  
  
Rey tells the captain about the wrecks as she starts the repair and replacement process. It will take some time, the three parts that have been damaged are the most important ones. The hyperdrive motivator has cracked which has caused the inertial dampeners to die and the null quantum field generator to fail. Rey knows that without any one of these components, hyperspace travel is impossible. Even with the backup hyperdrive, which goes about five times as slow in a Corona-class transport ship, without the other two components the captain wouldn’t be going anywhere. The fact that the Kitwallow is still in one piece after being forced out of hyperspace proves how good a pilot Samsa must be.  
  
It takes hours to get the old components removed. Rey knows that it shouldn’t take that long, not with a Corona-class transport, but the modifications to the ship make it more difficult. First, it’s a passenger transport that has been retrofitted into a cargo transport. Second, Rey is pretty sure that the other modifications, which make it hard to directly access the array, are for smuggling. Rey doesn’t say anything about it; she’s only here to fix the ship and knows it isn’t her business. But it takes longer and by the time the three components are out of the drive, night has fallen on the planet.  
  
Rey has dirt and oil under her nails and smudges on her face, her hair is a mess, having fallen out of the three buns she always keeps them in and she’s tired, but she’s happy, happier than she’s been in a while. It feels good to do something and Samsa doesn’t seem upset that the repairs haven’t been finished yet. No, the older woman is smiling, grateful for the help and seems a bit impressed at Rey’s knowledge of ships and hyperdrives.  
  
“You don’t usually see this kind of understanding by someone so young,” Samsa comments as she hands Rey a rag to clean her face and hands with.  
  
“When you take apart as many things as I do, you learn as you go,” Rey admits, her voice muffled by the fabric as she rubs it over her face, only succeeding in spreading the oil a bit more. Of course, the only things that are put back together here are ships like this one that will be leaving again soon. Anything that stays on Jakku for any significant amount of time usually becomes part of the sand, especially if a storm is rolling in.  
  
After cleaning up the area, putting the tools away and moving the new parts inside so they are protected, Rey starts getting ready to leave. It's night, but she should be able to get back to her AT-AT before too long. She’s not that far from Niima Outpost and she left her borrowed speeder there. As she starts walking down the ramp, Samsa’s voice calls out in confusion.  
  
“Where are you going?”  
  
“Back,” is the only word Rey says. It makes sense. This is a client. The job is done for the night and she’ll come back tomorrow.  
  
“Rey, it’s late,” Samsa frowns. “I don’t want you leaving in the dark like this.”  
  
Rey looks at the captain, trying to figure out what she means. If she doesn’t leave, where is she supposed to go? She can’t stay here.  
  
Seeming to sense the girl’s confusion, Samsa pushes herself up from the crate she’s sitting on and motions towards the cockpit. Rey is hesitant, she doesn’t know if this is a good idea, but she follows her current assignment inside and is told to sit in the co-pilot’s chair, which she does. It’s then that Rey gets her first look at the ship’s instrument panel. With the ship turned off it's safe and, after making sure Samsa isn’t watching, Rey grabs the controls and starts pretending she’s flying out in the wilds of space. For a moment she forgets where she is and instead of Jakku, she’s on a mission with Captain Ræh.  
  
She comes back to herself when she hears Samsa chuckling and just as quickly as Rey starts fooling around, she stops. She turns quickly, ready to make a run for it if necessary, but instead the captain has taken out two boxes and is holding one out for Rey to take. Rey is hesitant, but when the box is held out again she takes it, but puts it down on her lap, looking at it warily.  
  
“You worked hard today, Rey. The least I can do is make sure you eat.” Samsa seems concerned by Rey’s reaction and Rey can tell. It isn’t the look on her face, because the ship’s captain purposely keeps her expression schooled into a pleasant smile, but her eyes... Her eyes have a worried shadow over them.  
  
Rey knows that nothing comes for free on Jakku. But she _has_ worked all day and _technically_ this would be like what she does for Unkar: Work for food. After a few moments, Rey nods and opens the box. She expects to find the usual portions, but instead it’s something else. _Somethings_ else. They’re colorful. Green and purple and brown and the protein isn’t green but pink. Rey has seen non-portion food before, but it is rare and she’s never seen this. It takes a moment for the smell of the food to hit Rey’s nose. It’s rich and sweet and Rey can feel her mouth water a bit as a memory hits her. She can’t place it, she doesn’t know where it comes from but she remembers smelling something like this before. But that can’t be right, she hasn’t eaten anything the entire time she’s been on Jakku. Maybe it’s from before...  
  
It isn’t until Samsa takes a bite that Rey follows suit. The flavors hit Rey’s tongue and her eyes widen like someone who has just taken spice. She’s never tasted anything like this before. She doesn’t know what it’s called, but it’s rich and filling. The green is some kind of plant, the brown looks like a rock but isn’t and the pink is flesh but she doesn’t know from what. And the purple… She doesn’t know what it is, but she takes a bite and it’s full of water! Sort of... It’s fleshy and sweet and when Rey takes a second bite she feels something running down her chin. She uses her hand to wipe it and then tastes the liquid. She squints when she sees something solid in the middle of the purple thing.  
  
“Eat around it,” Samsa instructs, a fond smile crossing her features.  
  
“What is it?” Rey can see that it has holes in it for some reason.  
  
“That’s a seed,” the white-haired woman explains. “You can’t plant it here in the sand, there isn’t enough water for it to grow. But on another planet, somewhere else in the galaxy, if you planted it in the ground, in a few years you would have a plant that could grow more of these fruits.”  
  
Rey spends a few more moments looking at it before she takes another bite. The fact that this thing has water in it is enough to shock her. How much water must this kind of thing take to grow? There probably isn’t that much water on the whole of Jakku. She knows there’s water elsewhere in the galaxy. There must be places where these things grow too. This and the brown thing and the green thing. She takes great delight in the feel of the fleshy fruit in her mouth and is sad when there is no more. Still, she feels a bit too full from the little she ate.  
  
Samsa takes another box from a compartment in the floor and offers one to Rey, but Rey shakes her head with a polite “no thank you.” She doesn’t think she can eat anymore. She isn’t used to a lot of food. Rey’s decline causes another shadow of concern to pass over the captain’s eyes, but she says nothing. Instead Samsa starts eating from the second box, which contains different colored food than the first two.  
  
There is a companionable silence for some time as Samsa finishes the second box. She gets up and takes all three containers, returning them to the storage hold as Rey starts getting up herself. The girl brushes herself off and turns back to the captain.  
  
“Thank you for the meal.” Her voice is soft and she isn’t sure what she should do now. She’s used to eating by herself in her AT-AT, but somehow this feels different. Samsa just smiles and gives her a nod of acceptance before she starts digging around in another compartment.  
  
“What time do you want me to be here tomorrow?” Rey asks. She glances behind her, down the ship where the parts and the tools are still sitting. Tomorrow she knows that she should be able to get the rest of the parts in place without much problem. Getting the old ones out is usually the time consuming part. Assuming that nothing goes wrong, the captain could be on her way by tomorrow afternoon.  
  
Rey’s question causes Samsa to turn back to the girl and seeing where Rey is standing, she seems to understand where the girl’s head is. She’s going to try and leave again.  
  
“Rey, it’s too dark for you to go back to the Outpost right now,” Samsa’s voice is gentle, almost what Rey imagines a mothers’ might be like. “I’d like you to stay here tonight. There’s a bunk in the back or you can stay here in the cockpit with me,” the seats leaned back into beds. “But I’d prefer to know you were safe. Then we can start tomorrow once we’ve woken.”  
  
Samsa seems to understand where Rey’s mind goes the moment the words leave her mouth. The girl’s eyes quickly move to the open ramp and for a moment Rey’s mind starts yelling at her that she needs to run because something isn’t right here. No one does anything for nothing on Jakku. But Samsa has been nice to her. She hasn’t yelled at her like Unkar. She hasn’t told her that she’s not doing enough. She’s fed her…  
  
“Whatever makes you comfortable, Rey. But I’ve seen what happens out there at night. I was walking around the sand when I landed here yesterday evening and I nearly got eaten by something I couldn’t see.”  
  
“You might have gotten the attention of a Nightwatcher Worm,” Rey replies after a moment of thought. “They can hear movement and if they’re hungry sometimes they attack sentients. It’s lucky you didn’t get eaten.”  
  
As she says it, Rey realizes that there must have been something wrong because Samsa clearly doesn’t like what she’s just heard. Then again, many visitors don’t realize the dangers that lurk under the sand.  
  
“That’s all the more reason for you to stay,” Samsa’s tone is gentle, but Rey can tell that the woman she’s been working with isn’t going to take no for an answer. The initial fight or flight has passed and Rey doesn’t think that she’s in any danger right now. She also doesn’t think Samsa is implying she can’t take care of herself.  
  
After a moment, Rey finally nods. “If it’s alright, I’d like to stay in the back. It’s nearer the door and if I wake up-”  
  
“You don’t have to explain, whatever makes you comfortable. In the morning, we’ll eat and we can finish up this job.” With that, Samsa smiles again and holds out a tan blanket. It’s not like the sheet that Rey has in her AT-AT, this looks like it’s made of a woven fabric and it’s _soft!_  
  
The Captain shows Rey back to the hold and pulls a folding bunk down from the ceiling. She helps Rey climb up as Rey is a bit too short and can’t reach it by herself. Samsa hands Rey the blanket again before leaving to close the ramp.  
  
As Rey settles in for the night, she can hear the sand whipping against the side of the ship. It’s similar to the way it whips against the side of the AT-AT, but somehow it feels more solid.   
  
Rey isn’t alone here. Tonight someone fed her and thanked her and gave her a blanket. Most people on Jakku look out for themselves, except Old Maggs, but everyone says it’s because she’s lost her common sense. Rey has never met anyone like Samsa Vashe before.  
  
She falls asleep holding the seed from the fruit tightly in her hand.  
  
\--------------  
  
Rey wakes up in a small panic, not remembering where she is. This isn’t the AT-AT! The sun is already up! She’s late! But everything comes rushing back the moment she feels the seed from last night still in her hand. She’s tangled up in the soft woven blanket, having curled into it in the night so it’s wrapped around her.  
  
She remembers, belatedly, that today is Zhelladay and the first day of the Crulora Festival. The Outpost will be closed today which means that everyone will be sleeping in while Unkar goes off and does…. Something? No one really knows what he does. To Rey’s knowledge, no one has ever cared enough to ask. What they do know is that he closes his business and it will be open again tomorrow, thus Rey hasn’t missed anything.  
  
Trying to sit up, Rey realizes how close she is to the Kitwallow’s ceiling and ducks her head, stretching her arms outward instead of upward. For a moment, she plays with the idea of ducking back into the blanket and actually going back to sleep, but she knows that there is work to be done. It’s what she’s getting paid for… well… what Unkar is being paid for. She’ll be paid in portions whatever he deems her labor worth, which means that Samsa will have to be here at least one more day. Or not… because odds are that she’s already paid Unkar for the services along with the parts.  
  
Rey shakes her head. It isn’t worth thinking about. She has a job to do. But first she needs to get down from this bunk, and that is its own problem. Last night, she’d had help climbing up, and from where she is lying, and it is a much longer way down than she is tall. Slipping the seed into her pocket, Rey looks around, trying to find some crate nearby that she can try to jump to, but there isn’t one. She knows that the alternative of sliding down on her stomach will just irritate her healing ribs, and she doesn’t want to chance it.  
  
Almost as if on cue, the door to the cockpit opens and Captain Vashe stands in the doorway, fully awake. She sees Rey and seems to read her mind, walking over and greeting her with a bright “Good morning,” before helping the girl down from the bunk. Samsa seems amused when Rey looks embarrassed at not being able to get down herself, but ignores it, something Rey very much appreciates.  
  
Breakfast is much like dinner was the night before, they eat in the cockpit, but instead of the green, brown and pink items it’s another purple fruit, but also a yellow fruit and a pink fruit, each with their own tastes and tartness. There’s also a bit of bread that crumbles when she bites into it. It’s not like portions. No, this tastes like it’s been in the sun or the heat whereas portions taste…  
  
Rey pauses. She’s never really thought about taste before. There wasn’t a reason to. It was the same food every day, and will be the same food every day after this. Food has never been about taste before this, it’s been about survival. Food is energy. It isn’t sweet or salty, or full of water. It’s sustenance. But this food is different. It belongs somewhere else, somewhere far from this dry, arid desert. It belongs somewhere, anywhere that isn’t Jakku.  
  
She wants to take her time eating the food, wants to savor it, but her stomach says that it wants to eat now. These fruits don’t have seeds, at least not the same type she has hiding in the pocket of her tunic. These ones are smaller and edible and she feels one get caught momentarily in her tooth before it goes down her throat. For a second, Rey panics, eyes wide like saucers. Samsa laughs and shakes her head as Rey exclaims loudly that she swallowed one and it’s going to grow in her stomach.  
  
“No it won’t,” the captain assures. “It’s okay. They need dirt to grow. You’re perfectly safe.”  
  
Rey is hesitant but chooses to believe that the tiny thing isn’t going to kill her and instead takes another bite, finally finishing off the food a few moments later. Again, she is sad that it’s gone, but her stomach answers that it may have been a bit much. Rey allows herself a moment to sit back in the co-pilot’s seat as Samsa puts the containers away again. Rey’s eyes fall to the controls as they had last night, this time Samsa stops and explains what each of the buttons and knobs do. Rey has a head full of questions and the captain takes the time to answer every single one of them.  
  
Rey has flown ships before; actually, flying is an overstatement. She has moved the small ones Unkar buys to and from his store area. But usually that’s just a low-hover, not really a full fly. She learned to fly on a Simulator she rebuilt when she was eight, but that program is nothing like this. Rey can almost imagine what it must be like to actually fly this ship.  
  
Samsa seems pleased to be able to share this information and Rey finds herself smiling as the lesson continues. Rey hangs on her every word. Soon explanations turn to stories and Rey is told the tale of the time the Kitwallow, with Vashe at the controls, rescued the crew of a larger vessel from a group of pirates. When Samsa gets to the part where she had to infiltrate the main ship itself, Rey leans in, worried about the ending, which must have turned out fine since the captain is still here.  
  
By the time the story ends the crew is safe, Samsa has gotten a new blaster and the pirates are stuck because their engines have been sabotaged and Rey has to wonder what else this captain does other than possibly smuggle things in her ship. But the story ending on the pirate engine reminds both that there is still work to do.They get to it, putting the new components into the hyperdrive. But that’s the easy part.  
  
The hard part of _any_ repair is getting it to run with the new components.. New components mean new calibrations. New calibrations mean a lot of trial and error which has to be done before a craft goes anywhere. It isn’t as if they replaced a flow valve, this is the hyperdrive.  
  
The ship is turned back on after the components are replaced to get an idea of what calibrations need to be done. The readout from the computer isn’t terrible. Rey has seen worse. Calibration takes a couple of hours, but that should be the last thing the Kitwallow needs to be fully operational again. If there are no other issues, then the captain and her ship should be on their way by the time the sun sets.  
  
Rey and Samsa split up for this part of the job. Samsa stays in the cockpit yelling readings to Rey at the back with the hyperdrive. Every attempt changes the information on the readout and they tinker with it until the levels all line up and the data is within proper parameters. It takes them five hours by the time the task is completed and both of them are very pleased with themselves.  
  
“Alright, time for a test run.” Samsa smiles, motioning for Rey to take the co-pilot’s seat. The girl makes sure to put on the safety harness before Samsa starts trying to get the ship off the ground using thrusters.  
  
Rey can hardly believe it as the ground gets smaller and smaller below her. Before she knows, they are in the upper atmosphere and Samsa shoots Rey a smile asking if she’s ready. Rey is practically vibrating, her head moving back and forth between the captain, watching how she controls the craft, and the stars that surround them. It’s unspoken, but she knows that she’ll be returned once the test flight is done. She figures it will be an easy test, maybe to whatever the next planet is – what _is_ the next planet?! – and back. But the moment Samsa starts up the hyperdrive sequence it’s clear something is still not working correctly.  
  
“The readings say that nothing’s wrong,” Samsa checks the readouts one more time but the ship doesn’t move. She deactivates the hyperdrive and frowns. “Defective parts?” she asks.  
  
“No, the parts were okay. I tested them,” Rey suddenly feels like she’s let the nice captain down. She’d had one job but clearly- No. The job wasn’t done!  
  
Removing the safety harness, Rey walks up and down the ship, taking a look at the hyperdrive module again. She wracks her brain, trying to think of what could be causing the issue. The parts they used weren’t new, but they were good, Rey had looked them over herself and she would have said something if there was a problem. If the hyperdrive worked before with the old parts then the new ones should work too. But then she thinks about where the parts came from. The ones that were installed were from a newer model Corona transport vessel that Plutt had bought specifically for parts. The one they were flying was an older model.  
  
That’s it! Rey runs to a panel on the side and starts digging around in the wires.   
  
“When was this ship manufactured?” Rey yells down the cargo hold.  
  
The captain has to stop and think for a moment. “Um… 4 BBY?”  
  
It’s an older ship. Rey digs around again and grabs a few tools as she starts rewiring something. It isn’t a different system, but she remembers from the ones she scavenged that there is something different about it: Older ships of this design didn’t have as much power as the newer ones.  
  
It takes Rey a few minutes to find it, but when she does, she smiles. She was right. The rewiring takes a little bit and Rey pulls the small, no-longer-needed component out of the control panel and holds it in her hand as she goes back to the cockpit.  
  
“What do you have there?” Samsa asks as Rey sits back down.  
  
“Compressor,” she grins. “You don’t need it anymore. The older models needed it to put more pressure on the hyperdrive because they didn’t get enough power. But the new parts we put in should fix it,” she urges.  
  
Samsa raises an eyebrow, impressed and nods taking the information in. Worse comes to worse if that isn’t the problem, then they won’t be going anywhere.  
  
“Safety harness,” the captain instructs and Rey puts it back on.  
  
And then they’re in hyperspace. Rey’s eyes widen and she hardly believes that this is actually happening. The stars are flying by them through the transparisteel viewport like streaks against the black. It’s beautiful! Rey has never seen anything like it. She stares as everything becomes blue and white and it’s difficult to make out anything specific, but it lights up the cockpit and Rey feels as if she’s just seen light for the first time.  
  
It only lasts a little while before Samsa is taking them out of hyperspace and they’re floating in the lanes near another planet. Rey doesn’t know which one and both of them are all smiles, so Rey forgets to ask. Because the hyperdrive worked! Rey hands the compressor to the captain, it is a part of her ship, and Samsa puts it into her pocket.  
  
“Well done, Rey. That was good thinking. It seems that she’s all in order now.”  
  
The captain hits a few switches and brings the craft around and they start to head back. Rey again sees the lights, which are no less spectacular the second time, and before she knows it she can see the sand-covered surface of Jakku below. From up here, the whole planet looks a strange yellow-orange-brown, and Rey isn’t sure if she realized just how sand-covered the whole planet was. But from here you can see everything! From up here Jakku is beautiful too, but Rey knows the truth. In reality the planet is harsh and unforgiving. Maybe things just look prettier because you are looking at them from above, like a dried flower.  
  
By the time Samsa sets the ship back down, the sun has set and the captain again refuses to let Rey go back to Niima Outpost by herself in the dark. The two eat dinner – this time items of pale yellow, white and small blue berries with flesh colored pink that tastes different than the pink flesh of the other night – and Samsa tells Rey another story about a friend of hers from during the war who claimed to be the greatest pilot in the galaxy. Rey asks at the end if her friend is still alive and Samsa smiles sadly but shakes her head no. The captain explains that telling stories is a way of keeping the memory alive. Rey nods in understanding even though she has no stories of her own to tell.  
  
This time, Rey falls asleep in the co-pilot’s seat while listening to another story. When she wakes in the morning, she is again wrapped in the soft woven blanket, but she doesn’t remember having it when she drifted off.  
  
Breakfast is a quiet affair and Rey honestly thinks that she’s taken too much of the captain’s time and food. It’s hard to justify for Rey because she hasn’t done enough that’s worth… one, two… four meals!   
  
After they finish eating, the sun is up and Rey knows that the Outpost is open again. It’s Benduday and Unkar only ever celebrates the first day, never the second. She needs to get back. She knows Unkar is going to want to know everything that happened and if she got any more money out of the job before he decides what her labor was worth. And she’s left her borrowed speeder there, so she can get home one she walks back.  
  
Rey stands up, handing Samsa the food container with a small smile, thanking her again for the food, which she’s not sure she earned. Heading back to the cargo hold, Rey gathers up the tools she brought with her, puts them into her bag and slings it over her shoulder. She then takes another look at the array they repaired. She feels good about this.  
  
The twelve-year-old bids Samsa goodbye and is about to head down the ramp when the odd silence from the white-haired captain is broken.  
  
“Rey!”  
  
Rey stops and turns around, halfway down the ramp, only to find Samsa walking after her. Rey is curious about what’s wrong. The repairs are all done, the compressor is out. Shouldn’t Samsa be preparing to go as soon as Rey’s clear?  
  
Samsa hesitates, something Rey hasn’t seen from the woman in the three days that they’ve known one another. Maybe the captain wants to keep the tools?  
  
“Rey, I’ve been thinking,” she starts. “This ship is old. And she’s been good to me but I have a hard time making sure that everything is working when flying her, especially when I run into people that need rescuing.” She brings up the story that she told the first night and Rey smiles a little.  
  
“I’ve been thinking about bringing on a mechanic,” Samsa continues, looking down at the girl. “And I was wondering if you’d like to come with me.”  
  
The words hit Rey like lightning. Samsa’s offering to take her with her? To let her work on the ship and stay on the ship… stay with her.  
  
Rey finds that she’s lost her words. She opens her mouth but nothing comes out but a faint, “Uhh,” which is neither helpful nor communicative.  
  
“I could even teach you how to fly her.” Samsa’s smile brightens a bit, the same way it had when she was answering all of Rey’s questions about the cockpit.  
  
“I…” Rey likes Samsa’s smile. It hits something in Rey that she’s known has been missing for a long time. All she wants is to say yes. She really does because she believes that this woman is nice. She knows Samsa is likely into some shady things, but no one just feeds you or tells you stories or wraps you in a blanket if they aren’t nice. But then Rey remembers, she never really forgot, but for a moment she got excited at a new idea.  
  
“I can’t,” Rey replies, a sad smile touching her lips. It seems to concern Samsa because for the first time the worry isn’t just in her eyes, it’s on her forehead and in her face.  
  
“Is it Plutt?” the captain asks, a wave of something more serious crossing her eyes. “If he’s keeping you from leaving, you don’t have to be scared. I can take care of it. You won’t have to worry about him anymore.”  
  
Rey can hear the concern in Samsa’s voice, but Rey knows she doesn’t really have to be concerned. At least not about why she’s staying. Yes, she and everyone else at Niima Outpost work for Plutt. No, the system is not fair. Yes, Plutt more or less controls her by being the one who gave her jobs and made sure she had a standard-issue implant when she turned twelve this year… and… No! She has been trying to go out on her own and doesn’t want to think about Unkar Plutt and his little empire that they are all caught in.  
  
“It’s not that,” she replies finally. “It’s my family.”  
  
That seems to get Samsa’s focus and the seriousness in her eyes softens. “Are they here with you on the planet?”  
  
“No, but they’re going to be back for me soon,” Rey says with a nod. “And when they do, I need to be here so they can find me.”  
  
The look that crosses Samsa’s face is one of sadness, but Rey only notices it for a second before it’s gone. Rey hadn’t mentioned her parents when they’d started talking on the first day, but had told her about the years she’d been on Jakku. It’s been six years, but Rey is certain that they’ll be back for her. They promised!  
  
The captain looks like she wants to say something, but doesn’t. Instead she walks over and wraps her arms around Rey and holds her tightly. It’s comforting and Rey finds she likes the contact. They stand there for a few moments before the white-haired pilot takes a step back and tells Rey to stay there before going back into the cockpit. When she comes back, she’s holding a few bags of dried purple, blue, yellow and pink. It takes Rey a minute to realize that these are fruits like the ones that had come with the meals.  
  
“These are for you,” Samsa says holding the bags forward. There are four different bags, each with a lot of these dried fruits in them and Rey’s eyes widen.  
  
“Are you sure?”  
  
“Very,” Samsa puts the bags into Rey’s sack with the tools. “But keep them for yourself. They’re good for you.”  
  
“Thank you!” Rey isn’t sure why she’s being given these things, but Samsa seems happy to be doing it so Rey doesn’t argue.  
  
“It’s my pleasure,” the captain replies, giving Rey another hug. “I’m glad to have met you, Rey. Who knows, maybe we’ll meet again one of these days.”  
  
Rey smiles and makes her way down the ramp with Samsa Vashe watching her as she goes.  
  
\--------------  
  
Unkar isn’t pleased when Rey comes back in the late afternoon of the third day. He takes the tools back and grumbles loudly, something about the dragging of feet and quick work being worth more than slow. Rey tries not to listen because she knows what happened and Plutt doesn’t seem to care. For Plutt it’s always about what he can get, what it means for him and his greed. The ‘it’ can be parts from the scavengers, trade goods from passing merchants or work from people like her.  
  
In the end, he gives her two half-portions for the three days of work because he thinks it should have taken her a day, two at the most, then she could have done a different job for him today. But now it is too late and he sends her off with her portions – meager as they are – and instructions that if she wants to work tomorrow she will need to be back in the morning, early.  
  
Rey gets back to the AT-AT just as the sun sets and finds it cold compared to the Kitwallow. Her blanket is thin and the sand makes a poor bunk compared to the soft mat she’d been using. But her things are right where she left them. The pilot doll and helmet sit on the makeshift shelf and the radio, still on and giving off its low hum, is right next to her sleeping area. It is a relief to know she hasn’t gotten raided while she’s been away.  
  
Reaching into her pocket, Rey runs her fingers over the uneven shell of the fruit seed before she adds it to her shelf of loved things. She then takes the bags of dried fruit out of her sack and hides three of them, leaving one out.  
  
She lays down on her blanket and opens the last bag, noticing that she will be able to close it again, and hesitantly picks a piece of the dried fruit. Examining it, she takes a small bite to test it and smiles. It is delicious and tastes like the fruit from the first night!  
  
Glancing down at the bag, Rey counts how many there are and wisely takes four of the twenty five pieces out before putting the rest of the bag with the others. She can eat these tonight but no more. She knows she needs to make them last.  
  
Rey cooks her dinner and the veg-meat and polystarch taste bland next to the fruit. They are filling enough, but the green veg-meat holds nothing to the pink flesh of the last few nights. She’s just taken her last bite of the polystarch when the hum of the radio fades out and a loud crash of static causes Rey to wince. She turns quickly, the polystarch still in her mouth, intent on turning the radio off, but then something happens.  
  
“Hello?”  
  
After everything the last three days, Rey thought that nothing else could surprise her, but sitting there, mouth full of portions, there’s a voice!.  
  
“Hello? Anyone there?”  
  
And not just any voice. Is that the same voice? Rey isn’t sure. It sounds like it, but the static is thick and it’s hard to tell.  
  
“Maybe this thing is still broken…” The static dissipates a bit and Rey can tell that it is the same person. It’s been a week since she first – and possibly last – talked to the person that thought she was ‘Lura’. But here he is again. She doesn’t know who he is or who he’s talking to (maybe himself?), but he sounds frustrated. “I mean two nights… they’d probably answer by now.”  
  
Two nights? She’s been gone for two nights. Was the person on the other side trying to get back through to _her_?  
  
Rey seems to remember that she can move and swallows the polystarch. Reaching across for the comm, she pushes the button and clears her throat, realizing a moment later that she should probably have done that before pressing it. “Hello?”  
  
It’s another five minutes before anything comes through but it feels longer. Rey’s eyes never leave the machine. In the last three days she’s fixed a hyperdrive, eaten fruit, and been to space! Not for very long but it still counts! And now the voice is back! If she believed in luck she might say she was having a good run of it.  
  
“Hey! There you are!” The voice sounds less frustrated and more upbeat now. “I was about to give up. I’ve been trying to get through for the last two nights. I figured if you didn’t answer tonight then my dad was wrong and this thing was really broken.”  
  
His dad? She wonders if this is a kid like her?  
  
“I’ve been away,” she answers hesitantly. “Only just got back.”  
  
The delay seems shorter now, but she knows that it isn’t. She’s been waiting for the right moment to trade the radio in, but Unkar needs to be interested first. Last week he wasn’t.  
  
“Did you do something fun?” the voice asks and Rey thinks about her answer. Fun. The answer is yes, she did. But she doesn’t think that she can actually say that.  
  
“No,” she replies finally. “I was working. Helping fix a hyperdrive.”  
  
“A hyperdrive? That’s really impressive.” He does sound a bit impressed, so maybe he isn’t lying. “I don’t even know how to do that and I know all about ships.”  
  
“You learn a lot taking things apart,” she shrugs though he can’t see, repeating the answer she gave Samsa a few days earlier.  
  
Rey doesn’t know who this is or who is listening. She thinks that this boy must be at another outpost somewhere in the sands because the signal is coming in clear enough to hear. Also, this radio is old and probably doesn’t get signals from far away.  
  
However, instead of an answer affirming that they understand taking things apart, it is the primary thing scavengers do, all she gets is a neutral “Huh” five minutes later. It isn’t really a word, more like a sound, and she thinks she can hear a question in it, but he doesn’t ask it. Instead the conversation stalls for a moment.  
  
“So… did you find Lura?” Rey asks, adjusting so she’s lying on her side on the blanket.  
  
“Lura?”  
  
“Last time, you were looking for Lura. Is she a friend?”  
  
“Oh!” It sounds like he’s just remembered what it was he was doing last time. If Rey had a friend, she was sure she’d remember trying to get in touch with them. She wonders if that means the person on the other side doesn’t really care about this Lura. “I caught up with her at school. She was really confused about it. Said that her radio didn’t even turn on.”  
  
School. Rey’s heard about this from people visiting Niima Outpost, usually in the context of a question. They always ask why she isn’t there, but no one really explains why she should be there. If she’s to understand it, it’s a gathering or some kind, but when they ask where she learns she usually indicates the Outpost or whatever she’s doing. You learn a lot by doing on Jakku.  
  
“I’ve never been to school,” Rey replies after a moment. “People ask me about it, but they never tell me what it is.”  
  
That seems to take the boy by surprise. “You don’t go to school?” Rey can almost imagine his eyes widening.  
  
“No,” she shakes her head then remembers that the boy can’t see her. “Never.”  
  
“Well… it’s a place where kids go to learn. You do math and science and a lot of reading and they give you homework that you have to show your teacher,” he explains patiently but his voice is flat, like it’s not something he enjoys.  
  
“I do a lot of work, but none of it can be done at someone’s home,” Rey frowns. “Except for Plutt. He does everything from his home.” She thinks after saying it that she shouldn’t mention Unkar again. If this boy is at a different outpost, the last thing she wants is word getting back to the Crolute. “It would be easier if I could, but usually you turn everything in before you go back.”  
  
“Turn everything in?” The boy repeats the words with a questioning tone, but trails off and Rey wonders if she’s said something wrong.  
  
“You said you were trying to get back through to me?” Rey asks, cutting off the last line of questions. She’s more curious about this than she is about explaining how to scavenge. Maybe the boy is from a family that runs an Outpost instead of one who works for one.  
  
“I was,” the voice sounds like he’s smiling once the words come through the five minute delay. “My friends and I were trying to see if we could talk with the radios last week,” there was that word again, friends, “but I think the trees must have made the signal bounce. I cut out last time because the radio died, so I was curious to see if I could get you again.”  
  
Trees? Rey remembers that he said something similar the week prior but she hadn’t understood what he’d meant by ‘terrain’. There is no terrain on Jakku, or at least not any kind that would interfere with a signal and there are definitely no trees on Jakku. There is sand and there are crashed ships and there are some very specific plants which will attack if you get too close. What trees? What is he talking about?!  
  
She means to ask these questions, but her mind is racing at where on the planet he can be if he has trees, on a planet where there are none and all she manages to get out is, “Trees?”  
  
“Yeah,” he replies with a tone that seems to say ‘that should be obvious.’ “Tall brown and green things that go as high as the sky. You can’t miss them.”  
  
Except they weren’t.  
  
Credits? School? Trees? These aren’t things that they have on Jakku. Rey has heard of some of these, but only in passing or from the datapad she rebuilt, the same one that taught her to read.  
  
“We don’t have those,” she replies, shaking her head.  
  
“What? Trees?” He sounds surprised at this revelation. “Trees grow everywhere. Especially here.”  
  
“Very little grows here,” Rey answers, hesitantly. “The things that do grow tend to fight back. I’ve learned to avoid them.”  
  
The boy chuckles a bit. “Ever run into a Ya-Te-Veo?”  
  
It sounds to Rey’s ears like he’s just spoken in a different language, but it isn’t Basic, Teedospeek or Shyriiwook, those she knows. Rey replies that she’s never heard of it and after the five minute delay she can hear the boy moving as he explains.  
  
“It’s a man-eating plant found far in the jungle.” Rey has heard the word Jungle before but doesn’t know what it means. “It has poisonous spines that look like huge snakes. And each of the spines thinks independently of the other.” His voice gets lower and Rey gets a bit nervous as her imagination starts making a picture of this plant. “The spines are angry and talk to one another and will strike at anyone that even tries to approach it. Legend has it that the spirit of an evil man is trapped in the plant and that he is bound to it for eternity and he will steal the children of the village until his enemies flee his home.”  
  
Rey isn’t sure she likes this story and she frowns, even though he can’t see it. She must let out some kind of noise because five minutes later, the boy is chuckling again.  
  
“It’s just a story,” he clarifies, his tone lightening. “It’s told to keep kids from going into the jungle to play without telling their parents.”  
  
Rey doesn’t understand fully. Not listening and not telling someone if you were going off to do something dangerous can mean a death sentence. Like the time the battlecruiser had sunk into the sand after that quake or the time when the ripper-raptors started their mating cycle near the Okali’s moisture farm. That had taken most of the scavengers working together to drive them off. And then there was the idea that they were playing…  
  
“Don’t they have to go work after they go to… school?”  
  
“Well, sometimes they might. I help Dad in the fields but he says that my homework comes first, that that’s my real job.” There is a roll of his eyes that Rey can hear, wondering why that would be a problem. This home-work sounds like it has possibilities.  
  
“Sounds nice, being able to work from where you live,” she muses. But there is no way for that to happen here. Not when the only thing worth anything on the planet are those old ships.  
  
“It’s not really like that,” the voice on the radio holds a questioning tone, as if he were remembering something. “So you’ve never been to school, you don’t have trees, I’m really starting to wonder.”  
  
“What about?”  
  
“Well, you’ve mentioned sand and lack of trees and taking things apart and working on hyperdrives, which I only know mechanics do, unless it’s for fun.”  
  
For a moment Rey freezes. Has she said too much? It has become clear to her that this boy, whoever he is, he’s not from another outpost. The things he says are too foreign for him to be from here. He doesn’t seem to understand about working the wrecks, he doesn’t seem familiar with the sand and more importantly, there is something different about him. Rey isn’t certain what it is. It might be his tone of voice. It might be the way she can almost hear a smile when he talks. It could be that he seems… happy.  
  
Happy is not something that she associates with this planet. Nothing she does is for fun, with the exception of when she comes back to her AT-AT and gives herself time to pretend she is in the stars. The last three days are an exception to this rule. She knew she needed to wait here. Her family will be coming for her, but Captain Vashe had been so nice… It had almost been fun?  
  
“Something tells me that the terrain didn’t just get me to a different radio on planet,” she can hear a smirk on his face at that moment. For some reason she imagines the look to be that of someone who thinks they’ve just figured out a big secret. “You’re not from Yavin 4 are you?”  
  
Rey has an overwhelming urge to reach forward and shut the radio off at his question. It’s the same urge she had the first time she heard his voice last week. She hadn’t done it then because her curiosity got the better of her. But now… she doesn’t know what her excuse is. It’s the part of her brain that reminds her she needs to be careful every time she goes to scavenge a ship or deal with Unkar. She has become cautious when people show interest in her outside of her skills because there are whispers about people who have gone missing in the past. But this isn’t someone from the stars who has made a pitstop on Jakku, this is a voice on a radio. It can’t hurt her.  
  
It’s only then that she realizes that the name he’s given is completely unknown to her. She doesn’t know Yavin 4. Rey has never been given formal instruction of any kind, but she’s met a lot of people working for and sort-of-with Plutt. She knows Bardotta, their closest neighbor, and Coruscant. She knows Hoth from stories of the war, Kashyyyk, Corellia, Kessel and Tatooine from tales smugglers told her. She knows Hosian Prime because everyone does and now she knows Chalacta thanks to Samsa. But she doesn’t know a Yavin, not one, two, three _or_ four.  
  
She realizes that she’s been caught in her own thoughts when he asks if she’s okay. She’s been quiet for five minutes which means the wait time has passed and he didn’t get a response.  
  
“Yes, I’m here,” she assures. Rey doesn’t usually let herself get caught in her head. It isn’t safe.  
  
“I’m not,” she finally admits. “From Yavin,” that was the name he’d given. “I don’t even know where Yavin is...” She feels a bit sheepish admitting that, but he’s waiting for some kind of answer.  
  
That seems to surprise him, but he covers it pretty well. “Well, it’s a pretty big galaxy. Just figured that the signal was probably bouncing somewhere nearby.”  
  
But it’s a big galaxy, or so she’s been told. So she could be from anywhere, even if anywhere happens to be nowhere.  
  
“We’re not really near anything. Most people come here by mistake or because they didn’t have a choice. I think we’re the furthest place from being anywhere,” she admits. “Just a lot of sand and remnants on Jakku.”  
  
She waits five minutes for his reply and what she hears almost makes her laugh.  
  
“Jakku?!”  
  
There’s the sound of shuffling and she hears something tearing. The boy doesn’t come back right away but she can hear him mumbling to himself and the rustling of… is that paper? She isn’t sure.  
  
“You’re in the Western Reaches?” His tone is one of surprise, disbelief and maybe shock. It’s the same one that Nool gets any time T’fite wins a hand of Sabbac at Niima Outpost.  
  
Rey nods then remembers that he can’t see her. “Nothing but klicks and klicks and klicks of sand and metal.”  
  
“Nothing but- That’s where the last battle of the war took place!” She can hear his voice rising a bit in excitement. “I’ve heard so many stories about it!”  
  
Rey is skeptical. She’s heard stories about it too and none of them good. Most of the locals curse either the Empire or the Rebellion for varying reasons. Rey has never had a reason to get involved. But anyone being excited about Jakku? It just seems… weird.  
  
“All that was left behind were the ships,” she shrugs again. “I was crawling around one a few weeks ago. You can get good parts and trade them. That’s what most of us do here. Scavenge parts.”  
  
She says it nonchalantly, but there’s a pause after the five minutes, so maybe he’s thinking. He’d been so excited a moment before, she hopes that what she said didn’t scare him away. She wonders when she went from being worried to answer his question to hoping he didn’t just stop talking, but either way, there she is.  
  
She can feel a yawn coming on and her arm under her head starting to go numb. This five minute wait between replies takes up a lot of time when you’re having a conversation. She realizes that with better parts she might be able to fix it. But she’s supposed to be trading the radio in… Maybe she would get a better trade-in if she made the lag less…  
  
She remembers that Unkar told her to be at his stand early if she wanted to work in the morning. Given that he’d been upset with her, she knows if she gets there late he will just send her away, he is not known for his kindness or soft heart.  
  
“So, I know you live on Jakku, that you work and crawl around in old Empire ships and that you work on hyperdrives, but I don’t know your name.” The boy somehow makes the inquiry sound easy and casual, like there’s no pressure if she doesn’t want to answer. But… she does.  
  
“I’m Rey,” she replies. She looks at the radio as if it’s the person on the end of the signal because it’s the only stand-in she has.  
  
There’s another five minute pause as the transmission goes through and she makes a decision that she _will_ fix the issue before she trades it in. But as the thought is pushed out of her mind as he starts talking again.  
  
“A name to go with a voice,” she can hear the smile in his voice again. “It’s nice to meet you Rey of Jakku. My name’s Poe.”


	5. Sand and Bones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey learns more about her new friend Poe and traverses a wreck that has been sealed since the Battle of Jakku and deals with its aftermath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Per usual, thanks to damerey_knows, my fantastic betareader and everyone who I bounced ideas from/showed bits of this to! 
> 
> I am attempting currently to write the first chapter of my sequel series rewrite and my Dark!Poe fic, so keep your eyes peeled for these coming soon!
> 
> In this chapter, Rey is 12 and Poe is 16. :) (Had to adjust their ages for the fic! :))
> 
> Enjoy!

His name is Poe. He's from Yavin 4, a moon that orbits the planet of Yavin Prime in a system also called Yavin. He likes flying and ships, hates homework and something called literature and he lives in a jungle. Rey now knows what 'jungle' means. She finally asks and he says it's "a tropical place with lots of trees." She now knows what a jungle is, if only she could figure out 'tropical.’   
  
Rey had never heard of Yavin or its twenty-six moons until she and Poe began transmitting messages four weeks ago. Their contact is always after the sun has set; always after her day of working has ended. When she asks why he calls at night, he says something about fields and exams. Rey thinks they might be related to the school he does work for, but it makes little difference, she isn't usually back at her AT-AT until the sun is at least over the high arc.   
  
There's no real pattern to their interactions, sometimes it's one day a week, sometimes two. Rey isn’t as hesitant as she was when they first started, but some of the things Poe says confuse her. Some of them are so foreign that she has started trying to parse them out from context. Things like ‘swimming,’ ‘food going bad,’ and some game called ‘Bolo-ball’ which Poe plays with his friends. Poe’s tone changes when he’s speaking about something he’s excited about. He speeds up like he has too many words that he wants to get out. It’s the way he speaks when talking about flying or when he tried explaining the rules of bolo-ball to her. She still doesn’t get it, not really.   
  
Friends are another foreign concept, but Rey has started wondering if this is what it is like to have one.   
  
Poe is very interested in Jakku. He tells her he likes history and that Rey is living surrounded by it.   
  
“I’ve heard stories,” he explains, “lots of them. From my parents, their friends; a lot of Rebellion members settled on Yavin 4.”   
  
“They’ve told you stories about Jakku?” Rey is puzzled. She can’t think of anything story-worthy about this sand pile.   
  
“Well, not the planet,” he admits, “but I’ve heard all about the last battle of the war! My parents weren’t in it, but my Uncle L’ulo was and Captain Antilles and Admiral Ackbar.”   
  
He goes on with a few more names; none of them mean anything to Rey, but from his enthusiasm she knows they mean a lot to Poe. However, if this captain and admiral are friends or historic figures, she can’t tell.   
  
People on Jakku don’t often speak about the war. If they do it’s either to curse the Empire or the Rebellion. The populous, at least those at Niima Outpost, are much split; sometimes the same person curses both in the same sentence. Unkar has tried several times to dissuade them from talking about the days before the ships fell but has had little success. His influence may reach over all of them, some more literally than others, but he cannot stop them from talking.   
  
“... cover fire was given by the X-wings against the Imperial Star Destroyer while the Pathfinders took on the Stormtroopers in the sand!” Poe is still talking excitedly as Rey keys back in on his voice.   
  
Rey doesn’t find the same excitement talking about the battle or the fall of the Empire. She watches the radio, not sure how to reply. Empire. Rebellion. In a way she knows that her whole existence here on Jakku is only possible because of these things. However, neither of them has any bearing on the here and now.   
  
“...and the Star Destroyer was shot down and landed nose first in the sand!”   
  
Rey wishes she could have Poe’s excitement, maybe not about this but about... Well, anything really. Generally her excitement is linked to food, which is directly linked to her own survival. The big exception was when Captain Vashe took her up on the test flight. Rey looks at the tics on the wall and starts counting back to the special mark she made that looked like a star. That was fifteen days ago. Sometimes she gets that same feeling when she is working on a ship, but those bits of enthusiasm are usually dampened by comments from the pilots Unkar has made her work for.   
  
“I think I know that ship,” she says finally.   
  
“You do?!”   
  
Rey almost smiles at Poe’s reaction. It’s such an abrupt change from his retelling of the battle.   
  
“There are several Star Destroyer wrecks, but only two with their noses covered by the sand. The nearer one is close to Niima Outpost,” she starts.   
  
“Never heard of Niima before,” he admits. There’s some sound in the background. Poe yells something in a language Rey assumes must be Yavinese. She doesn’t understand it and wonders if he’d be willing to teach her. Language skills are always good to have on a rock like this.   
  
“Niima Outpost is where all the scavengers go to trade in their finds. Unkar runs it. It’s the biggest settlement on the planet.” Or so she was told. “If you need parts, a ship, stolen goods, guns, food, it’s where you go.”   
  
She can almost hear the frown on Poe’s face as he replies “Sounds shady.”   
  
“Not if there isn’t anyone to question it,” she shrugs. Yes, it does sound shady, but that’s life here.   
  
Jakku doesn’t have a lot of actual rules, they’re more like guidelines. The biggest one is to mind your own business. If you don’t worry about anyone but yourself, or your family if you’ve got one, then you’re less likely to get into trouble. It’s a rule Unkar likes to remind his ‘workers’ of regularly.   
  
“So what’s it like?” Poe’s enthusiasm is back, and she wonders where it all comes from.   
  
“I don’t know. It’s an old ship.” She knows this isn’t what he’s hoping for, but while Poe is interested because of what he heard in a story, Rey’s focus is on reality. This is just life. There’s not much interesting about the wreck outside of its value in potential parts. But she can picture him on the other end of the connection disappointed, and she doesn’t want him to stop talking to her, so she thinks.   
  
“It’s huge,” she starts, “stuck in the dune. The engines are the best way of getting in. But to get to them you need to climb up the sand and it’s steep, like a wall.”   
  
“The insides are broken,” she tries to remember what it looked like the last time she’d been in that particular wreck. “Jagged metal everywhere. The closer you get to the top the more intact things are. You usually find more up there. I’ve been in other ships that are on their sides. You need to be careful in those; the only way to get from deck to deck is with a rope. Generally you find compressors, tubing, motivators, electrical paneling. The trick is examining them and taking them apart to see if the pieces are still worth anything.”   
  
A shiver makes its way down Rey’s spine and for a second she thinks that some sand got into her tunic. It’s actually a sign that the winds have started blowing and she needs to close the metal door to the outside for the night, which she does before continuing.   
  
“When you put it like that, it doesn’t sound fun…” His voice is a bit flat and Rey realizes that she has likely dispelled some idea he had. She doesn’t have anything to say that might make it sound magical. Ships being put together or fixed were exciting and magical. Those that are husks of their former selves and being scavenged aren’t. They are, however, the highest point on Jakku. The metal husks tower over the sand dunes and cast long shadows.   
  
“Sometimes, if you stay out long enough, and you get high enough, you can see the sun set over the dunes,” she says quietly, the colors playing in her memory. “You don’t want to stay out after dark. There are things that wait in the sand to catch people who are too slow. I’ve had to stay in the ships some nights because I’ve lost track of time. But you don’t see colors like that anywhere else here.”   
  
Rey feels a bit uneasy because the colors in the sky have always been something she’s kept to herself. She’s used to holding onto things that are hers tightly, because they can easily be taken. This isn’t as easily accomplished with thoughts, but that doesn’t mean Unkar hasn’t tried.   
  
“Maybe that’s… fun?” she asks hesitantly.   
  
Five minutes later there is another chuckle and she can imagine him shaking his head.   
  
“I think that fun might mean different things to us,” he answers. His tone doesn’t seem to have any worries in it. This and his words remind her that Yavin 4 with its schools and trees and food that goes bad must be a very different place than Jakku. She hopes that it is a better-different, not a worse one.   
  
Poe is right about one thing, fun has a very different meaning to them. Rey will allow herself time to imagine, she taught herself to fly using a simulator, she has her doll. These things are fun, but she has to have her head here, ready for anything. Fun isn’t a word that most people on Jakku use regularly. It is a hard place that breeds hearty people and that has to be enough.   
  
\-----------   
  
Three days before the end of the month, Old Maggs proclaims the twelve-year-old completely healed. Rey knows already because there’s no pain when she stands, twists or moves, but Old Maggs' word carries weight. On Jakku, age is a badge of honor and the fact that Old Maggs is  _ Old _ Maggs is the reason that everyone listens to her, in spite of some thinking she's lost her senses.   
  
Rey likes Old Maggs. The older woman doesn’t like everyone, but she always says hello to Rey. The girl has heard stories from Tineel, Old Maggs' grandson, about when his grandmother was Young Maggs. The stories paint her as a stubborn woman who tried to tame the desert and may have helped take down a few white-armored Stormtroopers the day the ships fell. If anyone could have done this, Rey believes it would be Old Maggs.   
  
Word of Rey’s recovery spreads quickly through the Outpost after Maggs gives her approval. Rey has a feeling that Unkar has been spreading the word of her recovery himself. On Niima Outpost, and Jakku as a whole, people mind their own business, it’s the rule. However, if it is something business-related, the rule is often bent.   
  
Physically Rey is the smallest and the youngest of the working scavengers. Most parents will do everything they can to keep their children away from the wrecks for as long as possible. Rey’s parents left her here with only promises that they’d return; she’s worked from the day she was left in Unkar’s “care.” Her ability to get into the smaller spaces is advantageous to the more adult scavengers. She’s been viewed as an asset for this reason since she started scavenging. Rey knows she needs to keep growing her skills. She has a good reputation and has a knack for finding things others don’t. But as she gets older and – hopefully – grows bigger, getting into the small spaces will be harder. While she’ll be able to carry more and fend for herself easier, the offers she gets now will no longer be options.   
  
Rey doesn’t like Unkar’s meddling. What she wants most is to be free of him. Rey knows many at Niima Outpost feel the same way, but Unkar is the only one who pays. Anything advantageous to the scavengers is eventually advantageous to Unkar himself. Everyone here works for him, however indirectly. Rey can always want things, but she’s learned that wanting things does not always mean you can obtain them.   
  
Two hours after word has gotten around, Rey has several offers for the day. Working with a group is usually safer, but there the downside that she never gets a full cut of whatever the portion haul is. She gets paid what was agreed to, no more, no less. Sometimes it works in her favor: If there’s a bad haul she still gets paid. If there’s a good haul, someone else gets extra portions for her hard work.   
  
Rey chooses to take the Yoonta Brothers up on their offer. The three have always treated Rey fairly and when they discuss the job, the brothers reveal they have a wreck in mind: A half-buried Star Destroyer six clicks from the Outpost, the second destroyer with its nose buried in the sand. It’s widely acknowledged that wrecks closer to the Outpost have less to offer than those further away. Scavenging more than two clicks away from the Outpost is generally done in groups. There are too many potential predators - both animal and sentient - waiting in the sand and one person by themselves is easy prey.   
  
Faep Yoonta, the oldest of the three brothers, offers Rey a fair amount for her services, and includes the possibility of continuing the agreement if the wreck proves a good harvest. Good wrecks mean more parts, more parts mean more work; once a group is familiar with a ship, crew continuity is always a good idea. Given the size of the ship the brothers chose, Rey isn’t surprised to see they’ve brought on three other scavengers. Rey is familiar with all of them: Zeof, who she’s worked with before, Vil Cyone, who works with the Yoontas on the regular and Jallo Zapal.   
  
Zapal is an offworlder, a Kajain'sa'Nikto. No one on the Outpost has much to say about him, good or bad. In a place where your work reputation is your life, that fact makes most people wary. No one seems to know who he is, where he comes from, or why he’s on Jakku. Zapal comes and goes as he pleases, generally stopping on the planet for several weeks at a time. Sometimes he disappears into the desert, sometimes he hangs about the Outpost. A lot of the time he talks with Unkar, but Zapal never trades anything, he never sells anything and usually he doesn’t leave with anything. It makes Rey wonder what he’s doing on this job, but it’s not her place and she knows that.   
  
The Yoontas supply them with transportation, two old speeders they’ve up-kept for years with parts from the Graveyard. Rey has done a fair amount of work on them herself, replacing parts and changing valves. She’s very familiar with them. When Tolin Yoonta, the middle brother, offers her the front seat of the speeder she most recently serviced, she jumps in before anyone can complain.   
  
Traveling the six kilometers is the easy part of the day. The wreck of the Star Destroyer seems to rise out of the sand like a mountain. The front half is completely buried, but the visible part of the ship itself is oddly perpendicular, like it fell out of the sky straight down. When they get close enough, Rey can see the ebb and flow patterns of sandstorms that came and went, covering the wreck over time.   
  
The ship is covered from its weapons targeting system down. The communications tower at its highest point is missing and has likely been gone for ages. Other than a lot of bangs, dents, missing plating, and one section near the bridge where there was clearly a fire, the structure looks rather intact from the outside.   
  
The speeders stop on the aft side of the wreck. As the party of regroups, Faep, Tolin and their younger brother Deel explain the plan. They will go through the lower half of the wreck – the part covered in the sand – and grab anything they can. The brothers have checked the ship enough to know that the covered half is blocked from the inside the whole way through. The brothers believe the blockage means this part of the ship should be completely intact. Rey highly doubts this. There isn’t a wreck on Jakku that has been left completely alone. As headlamps are given out, Rey reminds herself either way she needs to be careful and focus on the job.   
  
Rey checks her gear a few times as they wait for Deel to cut a sentient-sized entrance in the hull. Her rope, levering tools, water and recovery bag are all secured to her person the way she likes. She’s very happy to be here, happy to be doing something active, but Rey has an uneasy feeling at the pit of her stomach and she doesn’t know why. It’s like eyes are watching her, but there’s no one else around, just the seven of them.   
  
Eventually Deel breaks through the hull. Everyone puts their wraps and breathing devices in place before climbing in. Head lamps go on and the job begins.   
  
For a ship that crashed, Rey notes that the wreck is in relatively good shape: The walls aren’t bent, there are no cavernous holes and the ship floor is even, give or take. There is only so much she can expect from a wreck that has been here longer than she’s been alive, but it’s a nice change to have a wreck she can actually walk through.   
  
As the sounds of their footfalls echo against the metal, Rey corrects herself. It isn’t nice, this is eerie. Most of the wrecks she’s scavenged are ships so twisted and broken you can see the sun through the metal. The only natural light here comes from the breach they made themselves. The ship is pitch black aside from their lamps and Rey feels a shiver run up her spine. There’s something about this place…   
  
As the party gets the lay of the land, Rey sees just how intact it really is and her eyes widen. It’s a scavenger’s dream! Most of the things in here are in fantastic condition! Rey’s never seen this much in one place. There are transparisteel maps, targeting computers and radar and control modules. Datapads sit abandoned on the floor, instruction cards are still plugged into stations and pages with writing on them are scattered down the corridor. The components alone are worth enough to feed a family for years!   
  
They pass a few doors leading to small rooms with desks inside. Rey realizes these must be private quarters of some kind. She recognizes some of what she sees from other wrecks she’s scavenged. The further into the wreck they go the more it feels like someone could come walking down the hallway at any time.   
  
Suddenly Rey stops. The shiver runs down her back again and her eyes unfocus. Blinking, she leans against one of the consoles. She isn’t sure what’s happening, but she can hear the sound of boots stomping against the metal and sand of the floor. It doesn’t make sense, there are only the seven of them here but it sounds like a battalion. She can almost hear voices yelling, the sound of consoles, an explosion…   
  
Rey feels a hand on her shoulder. She jumps, ready to fight back, only to find Zeof behind her. The hand seems to ground her and the sounds fall away. Getting her bearings, Rey looks around and realizes that the rest of the group is further down the corridor.   
  
“You alright?” Zeof’s voice is low, so as not to be heard by anyone else.   
  
Was that real? Was that her imagination? Rey isn’t sure because the noises are just gone. She’s never heard anything like that before, not even in dreams. It all sounded so close… Rey takes a breath, pushing the questions out of her mind. This isn’t the time or the place for it. She has a job to do. Whatever that was, clearly it isn’t here now. Nothing is.   
  
Glancing up at Zeof, she nods, “Thought I heard something.” She frowns as the word ‘haunted’ echoes in the back of her mind.   
  
The others have outpaced them at that point; Rey realizes they haven’t noticed she and the Duros aren’t with them. Rey knows the further they get the better the odds they’ll be separated in the ship’s branching corridors. She starts moving down the hall, but Zeof’s long fingers close tighter around her shoulder, keeping her in place.   
  
Rey instantly tenses. Her eyes move to the hand and she starts trying to pull away harder. Her eyes flash, fight or flight kicking in. But Zeof is stronger than she is and keeps his grip.   
  
“Just wait a moment, I want to talk to you,” Zeof’s tone is still low, but his voice is calm as is his face. As if to prove that nothing’s wrong, he removes his hand and instead of running in the opposite direction, Rey takes a few steps back.   
  
Zeof is a Duros of few words, when he speaks generally people listen. He’s one of the more experienced scavengers at Niima Outpost and holds the respect of most of its residents. He isn’t young but isn’t old, and Rey knows he’s been doing this since long before she was born. It makes sense why the Yoontas hired him for the job, his experience speaks for itself.   
  
When he doesn’t move again, Rey realizes he is waiting for her to make a decision. She nods, glancing down the corridor to see the lights from the headlamps fading. They’ll be able to follow when they’re done with… whatever Zeof wants.   
  
The Duros listens, waiting until other party members are further away before speaking again.   
  
“Apologies,” he starts. “This is not for them.”   
  
Rey frowns, her forehead furrowing. She tries to look unhappy and cross, but at twelve it’s hard for her to correctly capture the balance of pissed and ‘what the kriff’ she’s seen so many times on the adults around her. Instead she gets concerned and a bit uneasy.   
  
“What isn’t for them?”   
  
Rey notes that his shoulders are square, his body language seems at ease, but his expression is not. It’s almost like he’s… worried? Zeof was the first scavenger to bring Rey on a job. Unkar had insisted. The junk boss said he needed his best to teach her, even though she’d spent years cleaning, taking apart and refurbishing the parts in the back of the shop.   
  
“You need to keep your head down.” Zeof’s tone isn’t threatening, but patient. It’s the way he always speaks, like he has all the time in the galaxy; like he knows rushing isn’t necessary and won’t make a difference. Sometimes Rey wonders if Zeof knows something the rest of them don’t. Today, she’s certain of it.   
  
“What do you mean?” She’s confused. They’ve just started and she hasn’t done anything. She’s not in any danger. She knows what she’s doing.   
  
“I have a feeling,” Zeof says sagely. “And it isn’t a good one. Whatever happens here, I don’t want you getting caught up in anything you can’t get yourself out of.”   
  
“I’ve gotten good at taking care of myself,” she replies, some defiance sneaking into her tone, but Zeof just shakes his head, his lipless mouth turning up a bit at the edges.   
  
“There are things you cannot protect yourself from, Rey. At least not yet.” He almost sounds fond of her, but that isn’t something that happens on this planet. Not unless you’re a family. “Do the job, keep your head down. I think there’s more going on here than the Yoontas are saying.”   
  
Rey has never taken any interest in the politics of Jakku. For her it’s about survival, pure and simple. This is the first time she’s ever gotten some kind of warning and she hopes she hasn’t gotten herself mixed up in something she might regret later.   
  
Zeof doesn’t say anything more, instead he starts walking down the corridor to catch up with the others. Rey follows, rushing to keep up with the Duros’ longer legs. They reach the others after a few moments, just in time to hear the brothers say today’s job will be an inventory of everything in this part of the ship.   
  
“Anything small enough to grab, we’ll take today.”   
  
Deel Yoonta starts handing out datapads. Rey is about to take hers when Faep waves her over.   
  
“I have a different assignment for you,” Faep instructs. “Everyone else is going to be inventorying, I need you to check out the rooms down the corridors and mark them with this,” he hands her a few pieces of white chalk, “if there’s anything in there worth inventorying.”   
  
For a moment Rey is perplexed. She was hired on a scavenging job but this is a recon job. It wouldn’t be the first time Rey has done recon, but it isn’t what she signed up for. Still, she  _ did _ sign up, and she’s here and it’s food. She nods and takes the chalk. Pulling her goggles over her eyes for extra protection, she starts.   
  
It again occurs to Rey how dark it is as she makes her way down the corridor on her own. The ship is too calm, too still. Rey can’t put her finger on it, but being here feels wrong. There’s something that tells her this part of the ship should be left alone, she just doesn’t understand why.   
  
She walks down the corridor, the sand on the deck getting thicker under her boots. The further she walks, the more the feeling in her stomach grows. By the time she gets to the first door – about fifty feet down the corridor – she wonders if she should turn back. Instead Rey cautiously pushes the door open and finds it full of firearms and white armor. She puts a white mark on the front of the door with the chalk and keeps going.   
  
The pattern continues for the next twelve doors. There’s something in each and every one: equipment, firearms, armor, and other things Rey can’t identify. Each door gets a mark before Rey moves on to the next. The further down the corridor she gets, the colder Rey starts to feel. It’s disconcerting as the rest of the ship is warm from the Jakku sun.   
  
Rey gets to the next door and tries to pull it open, but it's stuck. Something is keeping it from moving. She tries it again and can feel a little give as she pulls it towards her. A little give is something she can work with. There is a tiny gap that she slips her pry bar into. Slowly but surely she gets the door open enough that she can pull it the rest of the way.   
  
It’s a mistake.   
  
Rey’s nose is suddenly assaulted. It penetrates the protective layers of cloth. Rey gags. She can practically taste it. It’s musty and putrid and her eyes water under the goggles. Rey tries to get the door closed but before she can, she finds herself under what was blocking it.   
  
Rey looks up and sees faces staring blankly down at her. Sallow colored, skin dried and cracked and wearing grey uniforms. Rey tries to push against the bodies but they fall forward, knocking her down and trapping her underneath them. She lets out a horrified scream and tries to free herself only to have the bodies start coming apart on top of her.   
  
There’s a sound of heavy boots coming towards her but Rey can barely hear them as she tries to push her way out of the pile of human leather, bone, and fabric that’s engulfing her. Her hand finds purchase on something hard and metal against the fabric and she tries to push but nothing happens. They’re heavy and she struggles, coughing as the smell overwhelms her again.   
  
The corridor suddenly lights up above her and she sees a long fingered green hand grab a torso. Another hand – this one red – pulls an arm away. The head that was staring at her goes flying down the hall. Looking up, Rey sees Zeof and Jallo Zapal standing over her. She’s tempted to breathe a sigh of relief but the air here is stale and she coughs instead, hacking from the smell and the dust. Part of her wants to throw up, but she manages to push down the reflex.   
  
Zeof’s hand reaches down to help her up and the next thing Rey knows she’s ten feet away, leaning against a bulkhead. She coughs a few more times, the smell thankfully less potent away from the dead.   
  
Rey is familiar with the concept of a sand burial. It’s one of a handful of old traditions passed down on Jakku. When a person passes, they’re taken from their homes, wrapped in a shroud and buried in the sands of the Plaintive Hand plateau. The sand and heat help preserve the deceased while purifying them for the afterlife. The words spoken over the body are old and ancient and only a few, like the residents of the Sacred Villages, seem to remember their meaning. Rey has attended several of these in her time on Jakku for children, most of whom didn’t make it past their third birthday.   
  
While much scarier and completely unexpected, Rey realizes as she comes back to herself that this is not dissimilar from a sand burial. The heat and the sand preserved the bodies that now litter the floor. Intellectually she knows that all these ships had people aboard them once upon a time. The people went somewhere. It isn’t something Rey usually thinks about. By the time she gets to these wrecks, they are husks, remains themselves, waiting to be taken apart. But the bones and remains of the sentients that once used them are kept by the sand.   
  
As she leans back against the bulkhead, her coughing finally stopping, one thing is very clear to the girl: This place, it isn’t a scavenging site. It’s a tomb.   
  
“Are you alright?” It’s the first time Rey has heard Jallo Zapal speak today, to her or anyone else.   
  
She has to clear her throat a few times before she can get any sounds out.   
  
“I… think so?” She manages to get the words out but she isn’t sure. Her throat is dry and Zapal holds out a canteen. Rey pulls the fabric covering her mouth down with her free hand and takes the container, greedily downing more than a few sips. It helps a lot and she can feel the dust – and other things she doesn’t want to think she may have swallowed – clearing. She thinks better of swallowing anymore of the water and spits it out instead, momentarily forgetting that the sand under them is atop a durasteel floor.   
  
Handing the canteen back, Rey realizes that she was holding it in her free hand because she’s clutching something in her other. It’s not heavy, but it’s clearly made out of metal. She isn’t sure what it is, she can’t see it very well and she shoves it into her recovery bag for later inspection. She can’t think about it right now.   
  
The sound of additional footfalls echoes against the durasteel walls and the entire party is then upon them. Zeof puts a hand on her shoulder while Zapal puts his canteen back in his bag, watching the others, saying nothing more.   
  
The Yoontas look around at the bodies and Deel lets out a whistle. “You were right, Faep. If this doesn’t prove that everything down here is intact, I don’t know what does. Look it. They never made it out of here.”   
  
“Trapped when their escape route was blocked.” Vil Cyone, the other scavenger brought on for the job, is kneeling down to get a closer look at the bodies, now mostly in pieces. “Must have ducked in here to try and save themselves.”   
  
“Anything useful on any of them?” The question asked, Tolin leans down to inspect with Vil.   
  
Rey starts feeling very uncomfortable with the commentary, and it’s made worse a moment later when she realizes one of the heads that was staring at her earlier is right by her foot. She takes a step back, trying not to attract attention in the darkness of the hallway. She doesn’t want anyone to see her; she can’t be seen as weak. It was the first lesson she’d learned from Zeof: A weak scavenger doesn’t survive long. She should be able to handle this. They’re not living, they’re dead. They can’t hurt her and they don’t feel anything anymore. But somehow, seeing the bodies after their ‘purification’ in the sand, feels wrong and her stomach starts feeling off.   
  
The Yoontas and Vil aren’t paying attention to Rey, but Zeof is. She can feel the Duros’ red eyes on her and she tries to turn away but it’s too late.   
  
“I’m taking the girl to get some air.” Zeof’s words are quiet, the way they usually are. In spite of the din as the others go through what Rey uncovered, the Yoontas collectively wave them off, more interested in what’s in front of them.   
  
Rey feels Zeof’s hand close around her arm and he practically pulls her down the hallway. She tries to pull away, tries to protest, but no one else is paying attention. At least she thinks no one is. By the time they’ve gotten back to the hole they’d made to get in, Rey has tried to get away from Zeof at least a dozen times. The Duros holds firm, dragging her, and doesn’t stop until they’re out of the ship and next to one of the two speeders the group took to get here.   
  
“Get in,” he orders.   
  
“No!” she shoots back, standing there defiantly. She refuses to move.   
  
“I said get in, Rey. Do not make me do this the hard way.” Zeof’s voice does not rise, instead he pins her with a look of an elder speaking to a child of their clan.   
  
From where Zeof is standing, there’s no way that Rey will be able to get back into the ship. He is taller than her, faster than she is and he’d likely drag her back out.   
  
“I need this job!” she exclaims, pointing at the ship. “I need to eat!”   
  
“I will give you your payment for today, girl. Get into the speeder.”   
  
Rey frowns, glaring at the older alien. She removes the cloth coverings from her mouth and nose and her goggles and with extreme reluctance climbs into the front passenger side of the speeder. Clambering into the driver’s side, Zeof starts the machine and turns it around, flying them back the way they’d come only a few hours earlier.   
  
Rey is silent at first, her indignation comes off of her in waves. Finally, after ten minutes of silent travel, she can’t take this anymore. They have six clicks before they are back to Niima Outpost, and that is going to take a while.   
  
“They’re going to know that you didn’t just take me out for air,” she frowns, turning to look at Zeof.   
  
“They aren’t going to care,” he replies blandly, keeping an eye out for any speeders or other hazards in the sand.   
  
“They hired me for a job, Zeof!”   
  
“You won’t be taking any more jobs from the Yoontas.” Rey’s head turns sharply as Zeof says it, eyes widening in disbelief.   
  
“What?!” Rey doesn’t work for Zeof. She works for herself (technically) and it means that she gets to take whatever jobs she wants. “Zeof, they pay the most and only take the best! I’m good!”   
  
“This isn’t a reflection on your abilities, young one. I said earlier there were things going on that you were not aware of. So you will not take work from the Yoontas again.”   
  
Rey respects Zeof. She really does. But this is ridiculous. “And if I do? Zeof, this doesn’t make sense!”   
  
“If we have to discuss this again, the next time it will not be as pleasant as this.”   
  
Zeof is a Duros of few words. He never says more than he has to. It is one of the reasons everyone at Niima Outpost respects him. So when he says that it won’t be pleasant, Rey believes him and swallows hard.   
  
As they round the next bend, the Duros’ red eyes soften a bit, turning to look at her. “This is serious, young one. I know you do not understand, but know that this is for your own safety. I will not have someone who I’ve taught and has potential being placed into a situation they have no business in.”   
  
The rest of the trip back to Niima Outpost is silent and Rey is left with more questions than answers.   
  
\-------------------   
  
Good as his word, Zeof gives her portions equal to those the Yoontas promised for her work. He throws in enough extra for the rest of the week. Rey almost argues with the blue-skinned male, but for some reason he is being a Bantha about who she accepts jobs from. Instead, Rey takes the offered amount and shoves them into her recovery bag with a glare. Zeof either doesn’t notice the look or, more likely, ignores it as he gets back into the speeder and turns it around, heading back off into the desert.   
  
Rey kicks a pile of sand, sending it flying, her hands balling into fists. Who does Zeof think he is?! He may have taught her in her early days, but that doesn’t give him the right to boss her around! For a moment, Rey debates throwing Zeof’s “advice” out and meeting up with the Yoontas again in the morning. But she knows that the Duros does not mince words. He says what he means and it is up to the listener to take or leave the advice.   
  
Even so, Rey’s anger draws the attention of two junk traders, who she yells at in Teedospeak to mind their own business before she starts walking back to her borrowed speeder bike.   
  
It’s still early. She could try and get herself another job for the day, but those left would be small ones that wouldn’t pay enough for the work she’d have to do. Rey also knows that she needs time to cool her anger. Taking a job now would mean she’d likely take it out on an unsuspecting piece of already-broken junk. That isn’t something she wants anyone to see. Out here reputation and skill are your biggest assets. Lose those and you could go hungry.   
  
Rey gets on her speeder and takes off into the desert. She doesn’t go directly back to the AT-AT. Instead she pilots the borrowed speeder around for a while. Her mind turns over everything that happened today. The only thing she’s sure of is that those bodies will likely show up in her dreams tonight; or more likely her nightmares.   
  
She finally gets back to the AT-AT just before sundown. Rey doesn’t feel much better than when she left Niima Outpost, but at least the anger has mostly subsided. She doesn’t understand and it’s something she hates, especially when it directly impacts her. There are too many other things she doesn’t have control over: the planet she lives on, her food, her family, etc. The list goes on. Up until today the jobs she took had been one of the few things she could control, but it seems now that is up for question too!   
  
Getting inside, Rey shakes the sand out of her boots, removing them. She turns on the light, closes the outside door for the night and flops down on top of the blanket. She closes her eyes and tries to relax, but her mind starts wandering and she sees the dried out faces of those men in the ship.   
  
Rey splays out on her back, staring at the ceiling. The movement reminds her that her recovery bag is still on her person and she sits up, emptying it. The portions Zeof gave her fall into her lap, each individually wrapped. There are enough of them to last her a week, two weeks if she rations.    
  
Something metal falls from the bag and lands on top of the wrapped portions. Rey blinks at it, not sure where it came from. It’s a square piece of metal and Rey turns it over in her hand to look at the front. The metal has two red squares and two blue squares on it; Rey hasn’t seen anything like it before.   
  
At first, Rey doesn’t remember how this item got into her recovery bag. It isn’t from a previous job – she empties the bag out after every one – so it has to be from today. Then she remembers there was something in her hand when she’d grabbed Jallo Zapal’s canteen. With some horror, Rey realizes that whatever this was must have come off one of the bodies in that tomb of a wreck. She feels sick for a moment and puts it down, shaken. She closes her eyes and tries to ignore the memory of the bodies on top of her on that cold, sand-covered durasteel floor. She can smell them, feel their weight and hear the sound as they started falling apart on top of her. She sees the eyes boring into her, hands reaching towards her as if to take her with them.   
  
She has no appetite, which for Rey is very rare, and instead curls up on top of the blanket, trying to control her breathing. She needs to think about something else, anything else. She tries to think about going on an adventure with Captain Ræh, but it doesn’t work.   
  
Rey cuts her thoughts off, or tries to, her hand closing around the item she accidently took with her. Unlike when she scavenges the wrecks, it doesn’t feel right. The square of metal doesn’t belong here. It needs to be back in the dark and cold, in the tomb, back with whomever it belonged to once upon a time. Why had it been so cold there? The rest of the ship had been so warm. She’d been chilled from the instant she started trying to open that door! Cold like dea-   
  
Rey’s eyes fall on the radio. It sits on a few pieces of metal that she’s managed to stack so it doesn’t touch the sand. It’s early yet, but not too early. She doesn’t want anyone to see her like this, being afraid is so easy and she knows what showing weakness does in the desert… But he’s not in the desert. He isn’t on Jakku. However, if she does this he’ll know. He’ll know that she was weak and that she couldn’t handle something that couldn’t hurt her. But Poe has been very nice in the four weeks since they started talking…   
  
Her hand reaches for the comm, almost under its own power. Her head is still debating if she even wants to do this. But before she can decide she hears her own voice speaking shakily into the microphone. “Poe?”   
  
She still hasn’t fixed the five minute delay on her end of the radio. She needs specialized parts for that, or at least she thinks she does. She hasn’t been focused on that. They’re parts that Rey likely could find in the scavenging site earlier in one of the- Her mind flashes back to the bodies and she stops thinking. She instead tries to picture what Poe is doing right now. She doesn’t know what time it is on Yavin 4, he might not be home. If he isn’t she’ll figure it out, she always does. She’s self sufficient, she doesn’t need any help. She-   
  
“Rey. Hey.” He sounds a bit surprised, but not in a bad way. “I wasn’t expecting to hear from you tonight.”   
  
She realizes that she spoke with him two days this week. They don’t have a schedule, but usually they talk twice a week at most. Of course he isn’t expecting to hear from her. Maybe she shouldn’t have sent the message. This is a bad idea. She can handle it on her own. She doesn’t need to drag him into this. She doesn’t need anyone- The bodies- No! Why won’t her mind listen?!   
  
“You okay?” He prompts her and she realizes that it’s been five minutes and she hasn’t said anything.   
  
“I…” She almost wants to tell him everything, but she can’t. Her chest feels tight and she doesn’t know what will help. “I don’t know,” she replies. It’s as honest as she can be feeling like this.   
  
Rey is surprised by his answer. She expects him to be like the gossip mongers at the Outpost. Instead, his tone changes, something about it softens but sounds steady, like he is preparing for something. “What can I do?”   
  
She hasn’t planned this far ahead. She doesn’t know. She doesn’t know a lot of things right now. Rey falters on the question over the comm, and she lets out a stammer of “I-I don’t-” before Poe takes over.   
  
“I think I mentioned it before, but I live on a farm,” he starts. “It’s not like the ones you talked about, the ones that take water from the ground?”   
  
“Moisture farms,” Rey supplies weakly.   
  
“Yeah, those.” He doesn’t seem to be upset at being corrected; he has that smile in his voice again. In fact, if she were listening closer, he seems pleased that she says something at all.   
  
“When my mom and dad built the house, when Dad built it for Mom, the war had just ended. I was three and had been living with my abuelo on Bonadan.” Rey adds Bondana to the list of planets she’s heard of but has never seen and abuelo to the list of words she doesn’t know. She’ll have to talk to him about it later when she’s in a better state of mind. “The first thing Mom and Dad did when they chose a site for the new house was to plant a tree. Now, you know that Yavin 4 has a lot of trees. But this tree was special.”   
  
“Mom was a pilot, one of the best. She flew dangerous missions with her squad while my dad was a member of the Pathfinders. Towards the end of the war, Mom was approached by a man in a dark cloak with an R2 unit, a mechanical hand and a lightsaber on his belt.”   
  
That gets Rey’s attention. Lightsabers. That means Jedi. But they’re a story, like the Force. Something told to children.   
  
“Jedi aren’t real,” she mumbles the words then realizes that she didn’t press the button on the comm and has to repeat it. It only makes Poe chuckle and she can imagine him shaking his head.   
  
“I know there are a lot of stories about them, but they’re real,” he assures. “I’ve met Skywalker and his apprentices. I’ve seen some of what they can do. Meditating, lightsaber training, lifting rocks.”   
  
“Lifting rocks?”   
  
“It’s more impressive than it sounds,” he promises with a chuckle.   
  
Rey finds herself relaxing as she lies her head down on the pile of cloth that she uses as a pillow, listening to him. There’s a sound of something being picked up and what Rey thinks is Poe taking a drink, before he starts speaking again.   
  
“In the days of the Old Republic, there was a tree that grew in the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. It was called the Great Tree and it had been there for as long as the temple. It was special because, like the temple’s residents, the tree was Force sensitive.”   
  
A Force sensitive tree? Rey finds this hard to believe. First, she doesn’t know if she believes that this is real. Poe may say that he’s seen it but he could be telling her a story to distract her. And while that distraction is working… If the Jedi and the Force were real, wouldn’t they be doing something to help people like her? People like everyone trapped here on Jakku? She thinks it rather loudly, but doesn’t say anything because she needs to think about anything else, even if it’s how this isn’t real.   
  
“Padawans – students – used to use the tree as a focus. Its connection to the Force got stronger the deeper its roots took hold. Students and Masters would meditate around it, use it as a conduit and some believed that as long as that tree stayed healthy, the Jedi would keep their connection to the Living Force around them. But when the Empire rose and the Temple fell, the tree was stolen by the Emperor.”   
  
Poe’s voice took on a slightly harsh tone when he said the word ‘Emperor’. Rey didn’t know a lot about the war. People didn’t really talk about it here. She filed it away for later.   
  
“When Luke came to my mom he told her that he needed a pilot for a dangerous mission. Mom agreed. She impersonated an Imperial officer and she and Skywalker got into the research base. She didn’t know what they were after at the time, and when they got there she was surprised to find the subjects being studied were two saplings.”   
  
“What’s a sapling?” she asks the question and for once doesn’t feel embarrassed that she doesn’t already know. Her head still feels too fuzzy to feel awkward right now.   
  
“They’re… baby trees,” Poe replies after faltering for a moment trying to find the right words. “Luke told my mom they were living artifacts: The last pieces of the Great Tree, stolen from the Temple. Luke had been collecting all the Jedi artifacts he could find throughout the war, and finding the tree meant that he could plant it when he opened his new academy.” Rey can hear the smile return to his face as he keeps going. “He gave the other tree to my mom, saying that he wanted the second one to find a good home. It was the first thing she and Dad ever planted.”   
  
“So… is it really Force sensitive?” she asks a few beats after Poe stops talking.   
  
“Well, Luke thinks so and so do his students. Ben especially. But for me, I usually stuck to climbing it. Had to take care of it for more than a year after I accidently hurt it, though.”   
  
Now that sounds like a story. Rey pushes him on it, but he sidesteps the question, saying it’s a story for another day. Instead he changes gears. “You feeling any better?” he asks, voice softening.   
  
Rey takes a moment to stop and think and realizes that she is wondering more about what the tree is like than the faces from earlier.   
  
“A little bit,” she nods even though he can’t see it.   
  
“I’m glad, you scared me. You’ve never sounded like that before.” He pauses for a moment before hesitantly asking, “What happened?”   
  
She feels the same hesitance and for a moment she almost says ‘nothing is wrong’ and ‘everything is fine.’ But this isn’t anyone. And he sounds… His voice reminds her of how Samsa sounded, like Poe is actually worried, like he cares. She’s never had anyone to talk to about things with before, not until the radio.   
  
“Are you afraid of anything?” she asks after a moment. She reaches over and gently grabs the metal square with the red and blue squares on it.   
  
“Bones,” he said seriously.   
  
“You’re afraid of bones?” It isn’t what she’s expecting. Not at all.   
  
“I had a bad break when I was twelve. Bone went through the skin. You ever seen your own bones?” he asks. He’s clearly trying to lighten the mood but it just makes Rey remember times when she was younger and too thin and then her eyes widen as she remembers seeing the arm bone earlier.   
  
“N-no,” Rey stammers hoping that he doesn’t notice.   
  
“Yeah,” he sighs. “Wish I hadn’t either.”   
  
There is another pause before Rey says anything, but eventually she reminds herself that this is Poe and he’s asking. He wants to know. He’s her… he’s her friend. Which is foreign to her, but it almost makes her smile (something she likely would do if the circumstances tonight were different). She reminds herself that the bodies can’t hurt her.   
  
“I saw the dead today,” she starts quietly.   
  
“What happened?” he asks the question again, gently, and Rey looks down at the metal in her hand. She doesn’t want to be afraid.   
  
“I opened a door and got trapped under bodies. They were staring at me and then started falling apart,” she tries to sound braver than she feels. “Their eyes were empty and it was cold.” She closes her eyes and clutches the metal tighter, almost making her hand hurt.   
  
“Oh kriff…” Poe seems at a loss for words, which is something he’s never been before.   
  
“Most wrecks are just parts and twisted metal. There’s never anything left. But these people… they were- They were trapped, their uniforms, their faces, all buried there. Trapped in the Destroyer.”   
  
Rey shivers again, forcing herself to imagine the tree that Poe described earlier.   
  
“Serves them right. The Empire tried to destroy the rest of the galaxy; it serves them right that they wound up trapped there!”   
  
She looks at the radio with a mix of confusion and surprise. His words jar her from her thoughts. Poe’s voice has changed. It was understanding a second ago, but now it’s harsh, angry and she doesn’t know why.   
  
“No one deserves that!” Rey’s reply is sharp, almost a cry. “No one deserves to be trapped, with no one to remember them like they didn’t even matter! Forgotten in the sand…” Rey trails off and curls into herself more.   
  
Rey knows that she is scared, but it isn’t just the bodies. There have now been six who’ve gone missing in the wrecks and sand – Oolom and his partner have joined that number in the last few weeks – and she does not want to be like them.   
  
There is silence over the radio for more than a few moments, longer than the five minutes necessary for transmission. She sits up, grabbing the pilot doll and hugsit to her chest, figuring that that’s the end of it. He is done talking with her for the night and maybe forever. She just doesn’t want to be alone as the desert turns cold.   
  
“I’m sorry.” Poe’s voice resurfaces after almost seven minutes of silence. He’s quiet, less boisterous than normal, but the gentleness is back in his voice. “You’re right. I… I forget sometimes how different things are there from the way they are here.”   
  
She isn’t sure what he means exactly, but he sounds like he means it. While Rey knows that everyone lies, so far Poe from Yavin hasn’t given her a reason to think he’d lie to her. The hurt she’s feeling, a hurt she doesn’t really understand because it’s in her heart, but not physical, stops when he says he’s sorry.   
  
“If I was trapped like that, no one would remember me,” she finally whispers into the comm. She knows it’s the truth. She is already alone. If she vanishes she knows no one on Jakku will miss her.   
  
“That’s not true,” he counters. “Your family would care.”   
  
Rey hasn’t told Poe about her family. Poe has told Rey about his: she knows he has a dad and that he has an uncle. But she changes the subject when hers comes up. Today, while she doesn’t feel brave, she doesn’t want to lie.   
  
“They aren’t here. They’re coming back for me, but I’m alone right now.” Rey wants to meet them more than anything, so she has to survive…   
  
“Well I’d care.” Poe’s voice is soft but determined and she doesn’t argue or question how or why someone so far away would care about what happens to her. Because the more they talk, the more she feels like she really  _ does _ have a friend.   
  
“Have you ever been stargazing?” he asks suddenly. It’s a very abrupt change of topic and Rey shakes her head before verbalizing her ‘no’. “Not far from the farm, there’s this place. It’s called Stargazer Hill. It’s really tall and when the sun goes down it has the best views of the night sky.”   
  
He goes on for hours, telling her about the stars above Yavin 4, stories of constellations and summer nights where it’s warm – “but not too warm” – lying on a blanket looking up at the night sky.   
  
Rey falls asleep with an image in her head, not of bodies and empty eyes, but of a special tree with deep roots under a sky full of stars that she’s never seen before.


End file.
